Microsoft (MSFT) has increased the amount of free storage available through its OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) cloud storage service, but the company is trailing behind some of its major competitors. End users on OneDrive now have access to 15GB of free storage.

When compared to some of its consumer- and business-focused competitors, many of which have been playing in the business cloud storage space longer than Microsoft, the Redmond company is lagging behind. A whopping 15GB of free storage on OneDrive, up from 7GB, doesn’t really compare much to the 50GB of free storage offered through cloud file sync and share competitor Box, which announced its new free tier earlier this year.

But to Microsoft’s credit, it has a huge installed user base and will be offering upgrades to its cloud storage services for as little as $1.99 per month for 100GB of cloud storage space. Not bad, really, particularly when you take into account the number of users who are are turning to Office 365 and other Microsoft-based cloud services. Even for those who are wary of Microsoft cloud services, they may already be dealing with Microsoft on one level or another, so channel partners may have an easy sell using bundled offers.

For Microsoft, though, this is a cloud storage play that could bring in additional customers that in time could find services they’re interested in consuming on Azure. The fact that OneDrive in its current incarnation is intended to work directly with Office 365, which has had its own share of success in attracting users, simply means a potential opportunity for Microsoft in drawing new users to its cloud services.

Many cloud providers use low-cost cloud storage as a way to lure business users in for a taste of cloud services before selling them on higher-margin services; and it has worked quite well for the likes of Amazon Web Services. Microsoft is muscling in on Amazon’s turf, slowly making a name for itself and carving out a significant chunk of the public cloud services market.

If Microsoft really stands a chance of being number one, it will need such initiatives to take down incumbent Amazon. Even if it does have a hope of taking the numeru uno position, don’t expect that to happen for at least a few years, though.