Microsoft wants to convince Evernote users that their note-taking tool, OneNote, is worth their while. To make it more palatable for Evernote users to try OneNote, Microsoft released an importer tool that will migrate all of a user’s Evernote content into OneNote.
After touting OneNote’s high ratings from Mac, Android, Windows, and iOS users, Microsoft adds that they “hear from Evernote fans who acknowledge OneNote’s appeal but are hesitant to make the switch due to the fact that all their ideas and information reside in Evernote.” The OneNote Importer tool, which is available only for Windows right now (Microsoft says a Mac version will be available in the coming months), is meant to remove this hurdle.
“OneNote and Evernote are similar in many ways, but we think you’ll appreciate the advantages OneNote has to offer,” wrote Vijay Sharma, senior product manager for the OneNote team, “including a free-form canvas where you can mix text, images, documents, handwriting, audio, video and more; free offline access; and unlimited monthly uploads.”
He added that Evernote Premium costs $50 per year (though he didn’t mention that it has a free tier) and that Office 365 Personal, which unlocks access to Microsoft’s suite of productivity tools (OneNote, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and Access) costs $70 and comes with 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage.
The OneNote Importer Tool requires a PC running Windows 7 or later. Once Evernote notes are imported, they’ll be synced across all of your Mac, iOS, and Android devices.
For those who don’t find OneNote’s notebook-like design intuitive, good news: The note-taking tool may get some tweaks in the future. “I do think that in the long term, as we think about where OneNote goes, not prescribing a particular organizational structure is something that we’re looking at,” OneNote’s director of product management, Darren Austin, told PCWorld. “Because we do think that tools should conform to the way users want to work.”
Microsoft’s timing can be seen as strategic, as Evernote has shown signs of weakness lately.
