Microsoft, Dropbox execs go public with their Office hookup Microsoft and Dropbox have inked a deal to integrate their cloud-hosted stuff: mobile users of Office 365 will be able to automatically save files to their Dropbox account from within Redmond's software. And Dropbox users will also be able to edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files within the Dropbox and share them within the …
"Meanwhile, Microsoft gets access to the estimated 200 million Dropbox users and the chance to flog them some Office 365 subscriptions at the same time."
Does this mean I'll be getting Microsoft adverts masquerading as files in my Dropbox? The Dropbox application already tries to run as root, now and then, on my Linux box. I keep telling it 'NOOOO' and it comes back and behaves itself until the next time.
If you don't like the thought of syncing to someone else's system with all the attendant worries about security, advertising or reliability, there are other ways.
For example you can install the likes of OwnCloud on you own gear and have phones backup photos one way whilst fatter systems like laptops do two way sync for documents.
You can do it your way or not be fussed about your information - your call.
Jon
I tried the Office 365 app. It only works on my android phone, it will not work on my Nexus 7 or any tablet (where the screen is big enough to use). It will not save any place but onedrive, not on the local device.
It was useless compared to other non-crippled apps that can read office files. Uninstalled.
It would take more then dropbox support to make me try it again.
You appear to be comparing apples and pears... Dropbox's free package versus the paid package for Office 365.
Despite all that, usability is what counts. How much space do you really need? I tried the rest and stuck with Dropbox as it works and does everything I want. (I do have 22Gb of space though due to referrals)
"Unlimited" storage for word processing and spreadsheet files is very unlikely to amount to huge amounts per user, except for the very atypical user. A thousand files at a hundred kilobytes apiece (compressed) is only a hundred megabytes. Microsoft doesn't expect to ever have to deliver on that "unlimited" promise.
The big storage hogs tend to be consumers with big music and video collections. However, most of those files tend to be things that they've downloaded, not stuff that they've created themselves. The secret of the cloud storage business is that media collections tend to overlap a lot between users, so they can de-dupe the pop music collections and reduce their real storage requirements a lot.
Office documents don't de-dupe as nicely as media collections, but if the types of files stored is restricted then that effectively limits the real storage needs.
For Dropbox, signing up third party developers (e.g. Microsoft) to use their cloud file storage platform makes their business offering more attractive. For Microsoft, they want access to customers and Dropbox can help them with this.
DropBox and Box were always competitors, and Box was aimed more at business users. Box is really quite expensive though; it has great version & access tracking, but OneDrive is much cheaper and now DropBox is getting built-in integration with Office 365. How can Box respond to that?
At least there will be another way to get documents into office mobile on ios. Onedrive is utterly and completely hopeless, demanding login credentials every two minutes, then telling you the ones that were perfectly valid 5 minutes ago aren't now. About 50 percent of the time you try to save a document to one drive claims it can't connect.
Maybe dropbox can do better, even if it is chronically insecure, although I have every confidence MS will bork its end of the deal.
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