Dropbox partners up with Microsoft

Dropbox has announced a new partnership with Microsoft. Ilya Fushman of Dropbox notes that over 35 billion Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentations are stored in Dropbox today, and the two companies clearly would like to turn that reality into a better experience.

As a result, soon users will be able to edit Office files from Dropbox, and access Dropbox files from Office. Here’s a screenshot of Dropbox files in the iPad Office app.

CROPPED-Access-Dropbox-files-from-the-Office-app-copy

And here’s the new option to edit documents from the Dropbox app.

CROPPED-Edit-Office-files-from-the-Dropbox-mobile-app-copy

This is a smart move by Microsoft, perhaps heading off Dropbox from rolling out its own Office docs editors, like Cloudon and others are doing (see CloudOn rolls out mobile Microsoft Word compatible co-editor), and which is where I thought the company’s Project Harmony was headed.

If Microsoft is becoming so open to partnering, maybe it’s intending to have many partnerships like this. Or, alternatively, perhaps this is the start of a much closer relationship with Dropbox, or an outright acquisition. It would be a better use of Microsoft’s money that building more Surface tablets, that’s for sure.

Relevant Analyst
Stowe Boyd

Stowe Boyd

Lead analyst Gigaom Research

Do you want to speak with Stowe Boyd about this topic?

Learn More
You must be logged in to post a comment.
No Comments Subscribers to comment
Explore Related Topics

Latest Research

Latest Webinars

Want to conduct your own Webinar?
Learn More

Learn about our services or Contact us: Email / 800-906-8098