14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft today announced a new agreement with one of the biggest rivals in the cloud-based file storage service business, picking Dropbox as its next partner to offer more document sharing options to Office users.
Basically, thanks to this agreement, Office users will be able to save their documents directly to their Dropbox accounts, no matter if they do it on a desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone running Redmond’s productivity suite.
At the same time, Dropbox users will be allowed to link their accounts to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint straight from within the apps, the two companies announced in a statement today.
Microsoft claims that, at this point, there are no less than 35 billion Office files stored on Dropbox, so this deal makes a lot of sense given the fact that users need more control over their documents without having to close the app.
Office for iPad also getting Dropbox support
Dropbox is one of the most popular cloud-based file storage services for Apple customers, so the iPad version of Office is among the ones that will benefit the most from this new deal.
As Microsoft says, sharing documents from Office for iPad through Dropbox is now supposed to work flawlessly, while those storing files in the cloud will be prompted to open documents with Microsoft’s productivity suite. In case Office for iPad is not installed on their tablets, users will be asked to download it from the App Store.
"Access to Dropbox content popped as one of the very first [iPad for Office] requests that customers had," Kirk Koenigsbauer, head of Microsoft’s Office Engineering team, says. "They want access to where their content is. We’re doing it to make sure customers have a great experience."
The biggest problem comes when trying to edit documents, as Office for iPad requires an Office 365 subscription for such capabilities, but the overall impression is that Microsoft might be preparing a new special promo for Dropbox users.
The future of OneDrive
OneDrive, which is Microsoft’s very own cloud-based storage service deeply integrated into Office, might be impacted by today’s new agreement, especially as Dropbox is currently one of the most popular such services on the web.
And still, there’s no doubt that Microsoft will significantly benefit from the partnership with Dropbox, especially because its Office productivity suite will become the main solution promoted for users of this cloud product.
Starting with 2015, Dropbox users working with documents will be prompted to open them with Office Online straight in the browser, the companies say.
All the other updates to integrate Dropbox into Office will be delivered to all supported platforms in the coming weeks, Microsoft reveals, so don’t look for such functionality until further announcements.