The big players turned the cloud spotlight to collaboration last week with a series of major product updates aimed at easing the distribution of data outside the corporate network. Google provided the initial push after introducing much-needed security controls for its fast-growing file sharing service.

Drive for Work now allows the enforcement of different access policies across teams to help better accommodate information of varying sensitivity, an especially urgent need in large enterprises with far-flung operations. Administrators can also take that granularity a step further and have alerts generated for specific events such as when a document with the word “confidential” in the title is sent to an external user.

The upgrade continues Google’s long-running efforts to bring its service up to part with rivals such as Dropbox Inc., which is likewise investing heavily in development. That similarly landed the collaboration powerhouse in the limelight last week after its efforts to create a homegrown note-taking capability came to light.

The upcoming feature, which was discovered accidentally by a member of an online product review community, integrates the technology that Dropbox obtained through the acquisition of HackPad Inc. last year into its sharing service to enable more collaborative writing. Once officially rolled out, the tool could help fill a significant gap in the editing process, but the importance of effective coordination doesn’t stop at the environment where employees exchange their files.

That requirement extends to every part of an organization’s operations, internal as well as external, a need that a fast-emerging startup called Sprinklr Inc. raised $46 million to address last week with its new cloud-based engagement suite. The bundle promises to help companies create consistent messaging across multiple channels, both those that they directly control and those they don’t, such as social networks.

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