DropBox has today announced that it has teamed up with Microsoft (yet again !) to allow users to edit their Office files, right from the browser itself. Through the newly introduced Office Online integration, you can edit all your office files stored in DropBox, online.
Announcing the same via a blog post, DropBox says,
We’re willing to bet that your Dropbox is home to quite a few Microsoft Office files — and starting today, working with those files is even easier. We’ve released a new integration with Microsoft Office Online, so you can edit any Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Excel files in your Dropbox directly from your web browser.
Now, when working in Office Online you can add your Dropbox account to easily browse, open and edit Office files with Office Online. You can also create new files in Office Online, and save them directly to your Dropbox.
The same integration is available from Dropbox in a web browser. You can now access Office Online directly from the file you are viewing. Just click the Open button when you’re previewing a Word, PowerPoint or Excel file from Dropbox on the web, and you can edit the file right from your browser using Office Online.
You’ll also be able to access your Dropbox directly from Office Online, so you can open any of your Dropbox files — and save new files to Dropbox — without leaving Office Online.
DropBox itself acknowledged the potential benefits its users will get through this partnership. Looking at some numbers, the company says there are over 35 billion Office documents stored in its service at present, thus offering a definite convenience to a large chunk of its users. As for Microsoft, it has has over 1.2 billion Office users, which includes 9.2 million Office 365 Home and Personal subscribers.
DropBox and Microsoft have teamed up on several fronts now, ever since the two announced a strategic partnership last year. For example, just recently, Microsoft announced, that it will now allow third-party cloud storage services to be integrated into its Office suite. Thos e third party storage services obviously included DropBox.
Dropbox for Business customers with an Office 365 license and Dropbox Basic and Pro users can start using this integration today.
IMAGE : FLICKR / CC 2.0 / Ian Lamont
