Microsoft and Dropbox announces their partnership. This means that Dropbox users who use Office across desktop, mobile, and the web as Microsoft's productivity suite will soon become the standard way to edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files stored on Dropbox storage.
Alongside, Dropbox is also adding options to its own mobile apps to push its users over to Microsoft Office to edit documents. For instance, if you're on a mobile device that doesn't have Office installed then you'll be pressed to download the apps to edit, and any changes will sync back directly to Dropbox effortlessly, just as you'd expect.
Microsoft is also adding the ability to share Dropbox files from within its Office apps using Dropbox's own sharing functionality.
"It's really about creating a deep connection between Dropbox and Office," says Ilya Fushman, head of product for Dropbox and Dropbox for Business.
"We think this is a huge win for our users. We think this will result in the best possible experience for people trying to get work done, and trying to get work done on the go."
The partnership between Microsoft and Dropbox were revealed months after Dropbox unveiled its "Project Harmony" work to bring two-way features to Microsoft Office. "We're continuing that experience," explains Fushman. "That experience is really about making it simple and easy to work on the desktop."
Plus, Office users on iPad will also benefit from this, because an update is coming in the following weeks that will allow Dropbox users to link their account directly to the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint iPad apps. Currently, Microsoft's Office for iPad and Android apps require an Office 365 subscription to edit documents.
According to TechCrunch's previous reports, the agreement of the two include four parts-- ability to quickly edit docs from Dropbox on mobile, accessing Dropbox docs from Office apps, sharing Dropbox links of Office apps, and the creation of first-party Dropbox apps for Microsoft's mobile offerings.
The new features are now already available on both Microsoft Office apps and Dropbox apps for Android and iOS. While Web integration is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2015.
