Microsoft Plans to Take Users from Evernote on the Mac too

OneNote EverNote

Microsoft has been looking at ways it can increase its user base and it seems like they have found a way with one of their apps. The company is aiming at taking users from Evernote and switch them to their own app, OneNote.

The company is giving Mac users of Evernote the chance to make the switch thanks to the OneNote Importer Beta which the company released recently. The beta allows users to make the switch from one program to another with relative ease since all it takes is just a few clicks. The importer works by searching for Evernote notes on a computer and after finding them, will prompt the users of the device to log into their Microsoft accounts or in some cases log into the accounts that are run by the companies and organizations that they work for. A few moments later and the importer will do all the work by shifting the notes from Evernote to OneNote.

However, the importer requires that users have the OS C El Capitan, which is the latest Apple operating system. After that they will have all their latest Evernote files sitting in their OneNote folders in no time.

The move is in lime with the recent shifts within Microsoft itself ever since Satya Nadella became the CEO of the company. Before, OneNote was only ever available for desktop computers which made use of Windows and also for paying customers of the Microsoft Office Suite. Now the company has shifted and is offering OneNote for free and in some cases even makes unique features on client apps that will not be on Windows itself.

The Mac importer comes a little late however when compared to its Windows counterpart. The company released a Windows importer back in March, and according to company figures, 71 million Evernote files have been shifted to the OneNote service. The company also added that it didn’t show however how many of those users actually had made the shift or how many of the users had made the move full time.

One of the major differences in the OneNote and Evernote apps is that OneNote is more grounded to traditional note-taking. For OneNote, each notebook has sections whereby users can organize their notes and thoughts in a good pattern. Evernote on the other hand only focuses on dumping its files in a manner many believe is less structured. However if a user is more familiar with one service than the other, making the switch from one app to another might be a difficult transition.

However, Microsoft might have a window to steal Evernote users after Evernote announced that it planned to increase the subscription fee for its service. Evernote Premium, which offers the broadest range of functions on Evernote now costs $70 per annum. This is expensive considering that this is the same amount Microsoft Office users pay for the whole suite for a year, and they will also get additional storage for OneNote.