Since the launch of Windows 8 last October, Microsoft has managed to sign up 50 million additional SkyDrive users, bringing the total tally to 250 million. Users began flocking to SkyDrive after Microsoft released some important updates to the cloud storing platform along with an app for Windows desktop.

Microsoft announced the numbers via a blog post on Monday by SkyDrive program manager Omar Shahine. SkyDrive growth was also helped due to the integration of the platform in Windows 8, which gave every new Windows 8 user a way to save their files online. Furthermore, Office 2013's default save location is set to SkyDrive and not the computer, and there's also a SkyDrive app for Android, iOS and Windows Phone 8. No doubt all of these options had a hand in boosting SkyDrive's numbers to the 250 million milestone.

The future is definitely looking bright for Microsoft, as recently it announced that Windows 8 licenses sold has surpassed 100 million, though that's not the whole story where the numbers are concerned. Microsoft has also announced another milestone: there are over 700 million Microsoft accounts, and 420 million of which use Outlook.com — and of course, 250 million use SkyDrive.

A few days ago the Outlook.com team announced a deeper integration with SkyDrive along with adding Skype video calling to the email service.

For those who are unaware, SkyDrive has been around since 2008, but Microsoft only began taking cloud storage seriously back in 2012. That was the year SkyDrive went from being a cloud storage solution with basis features to something worth using by everyone. If you sign up now, you'll be eligible for 7GB of free storage; if you were using SkyDrive before 2012, there's a chance you might have 25GB worth of free storage due to the grandfather program.

Compared to the competition, SkyDrive paid storage is pretty reasonable. $10 gives you an additional 20GB of storage, $25 gives you 50GB, and $50 gives you 100GB. Note, these prices must be renewed on an annual basis.