Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Only days after Microsoft gave its Office 365 subscribers unlimited cloud storage, the Redmond company has now announced that it will be integrating Office with Dropbox Inc. The two competitors have collaborated on a move that will mean Office apps for Android and iOS will be synced with Dropbox’s storage.

“Over the coming weeks, we’re updating Office apps so that they work with Dropbox, too. With the next updates to Word, Excel and PowerPoint on iPhone, iPad and Android Phone you’ll be able to connect to your Dropbox account, so you can access, edit and share your Dropbox files right from your Office apps,” Microsoft stated.

While such a deal might seem like a strange step to some, given that the two companies are direct competitors, as a business strategy it makes sense. Dropbox reported this year on its blog that it has around 175 million basic users worldwide, and around another 80,000 corporate customers. It’s already reported that Dropbox currently stores something close to 35 billion Office documents.  If Dropbox users don’t have Office installed, they will be offered a download option when they log-in. The love will be requited of course; if you access your Office app first, Dropbox will appear as a place to store your files.

Kirk Koenigsbauer, head of Microsoft’s Office Engineering team, explained the move, “Access to Dropbox content popped-up as one of the very first requests that customers had. They want access to where their content is. We’re doing it to make sure customers have a great experience.”

The move comes as another example of Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella’s “new and refocused” business strategy to create partnerships with other companies to improve customer experience. Koenigsbauer added, “We’re increasingly looking to provide a better customer experience all up. That’s working with partners beyond Redmond, and that’s important to us.”

The integration of Office apps for iOS will happen over the next weeks, while in the first part of 2015 web integration of Dropbox and Office Online will become available.

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