Tech giant Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) first announced its partnership with Dropbox in November last year, and just a few days back tech sites had the information that the former is leaving no strings untouched to improve its partnership with Dropbox. In fact, the firm relationship of Dropbox with Microsoft might cause a bit of uneasiness to its competitors such as the Google Drive of Google (GOOG, Financial), but time will offer a better idea of how beneficial this partnership would be for Dropbox in the long run.
Let’s dig deeper into the claims that were made a few days back and were authorized by the company’s management.
Joining hands to make customers’ lives easier
Both the companies are already enjoying the sweet relationship that they have built since November 2014, but this time it seems that they are looking ahead to make lives of their customers easier and less cumbersome. A new integration is on the way which could allow customers to edit their Microsoft Office files including Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents in Dropbox by using Office Online via the web.
Earlier it was not possible to edit documents saved on Dropbox unless the user was seated by a PC where the software was loaded. Though this online option provided for editing purposes, Microsoft is offering further flexibility to edit the files of the user from any computer, Windows-based phone or tablet.
Dropbox explains that using this feature only requires the user to click on the “Open” button while previewing the file on the web browser, and then the document can easily be edited from the web browser using Office Online. This facility would be available for the business customers who have a licence for Office 365 as well as for Dropbox basic and Pro users and even those who are registered on the free tier of Office Online. The only requirement for editing documents stored in Dropbox would be “having a free Microsoft account” for the respective user.
It is notable that via this integration process, Dropbox usage through the web is being made available to all users – even if they are not a business user as per their user profile. Besides editing documents in the Dropbox from Office Online, the user could also save new files to Dropbox without leaving the Office Online version. It’s truly said that such a new functionality would position Dropbox as a more competitive option to other cloud storage providers such as the Google Drive.
Offering a competitive edge
Dropbox has noted that the potential impact of the introduction of the new functionality would be simply huge. The company states that there are over 35 billion Office documents that are kept stored in its server right now, and this integration would allow several “millions” of users to take advantage of the new functionality added, post-integration process. As Microsoft has around 1.2 billion Office users, of which 9.2 million are Office 365 Home and Personal subscribers, such an added feature would quickly gain prominence and aid the tech giant grow its revenue further in the upcoming quarters.
Though Microsoft has its own online cloud storage system called OneDrive, such an integrated feature with Dropbox will entice its customers to now start saving their files on Dropbox as well.
Last word
When Dropbox first entered into the collaboration with Microsoft last year, analysts were speculating that this relationship would bear fruit in the near future. And such an upgradation announced lately is a clear indication that greener pastures are ahead for both the companies. So, let’s stay tuned and keep watching.
