
Dropbox is in your Office - ben336
https://blog.dropbox.com/2014/11/dropbox-microsoft-office-partnership/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=promoted-update&utm_term=English&utm_content=announcement&utm_campaign=microsoft-dropbox-partnership
======
lentil_soup
I stopped using Dropbox after the whole Condoleezza Rice thing and have been
using a mix of Google Drive and OneDrive and I must say I like them a lot
better. They do the same (and more if you use other Google Apps) and prices
are cheaper. Are there any benefits to using Dropbox?

Are there any other real alternatives you could recommend to give them a try?.

~~~
ChrisPebble
Have you had any sync problems with OneDrive or Google Drive? After switching
to OneDrive from Dropbox six months ago I've continuously had problems with
OneDrive syncing correctly and resolving conflicts by silently dumping a copy
of the file into the directory for me to sort out later. Worse it does this
silently so I often don't know a sync conflict happened.

Trying out Zocalo now with better results but was curious if anyone else
encountered this issue with OneDrive or if my experience was unique.

~~~
cowabunga
I had all sorts of sync problems with OneDrive so I canned it. I now keep a
central SVN repository with all my stuff in it.

I use svn because TortoiseSVN tooling allows diff/merge of documents, it is
centralised so there is a single source of truth and it works over WevDAV/http
so i can access it on my mobile device if need be (I avoid this where possible
and just use it as a tether).

------
carlmcqueen
I think this is wonderful news.

I'm really tired of having multiple cloud accounts for different types of
media. Getting files between the different versions requires me stopping at a
desktop to move to the desktop and then back up.

At least this gets rid of one of those steps. Now I just wish there were a way
to take xlsx's from dropbox on the iphone and send it to my work email without
it coming as a shared link. I work in a locked down, regulated environment
that can't open dropbox links. (finance)

~~~
rpedela
I am genuinely curious if you are unable to open any link or is the
restriction specific to Dropbox? And what is the reason for this restriction?

~~~
carlmcqueen
specific to dropbox type of sites, including external email sites that company
data could be dumped out of a secure environment.

------
andyjohnson0
Kudos to Microsoft for being open to partnering with Dropbox, as this new
functionality appears to overlap with OneDrive. I hope this is another example
of MS being more open and flexible after the recent leadership change.

~~~
bduerst
Between this and Band I'm actually impressed with Microsoft.

While it was new at the time of it's release, Dropbox has fallen behind in
usability and has sorely needed to effectively break into being a more
collaborative platform. While I don't know the numbers, I can imagine SkyDrive
hasn't exactly picked up with users.

All around this benefits both companies.

------
Alex3917
One of the screenshots here shows a user storing both personal and business
documents under the same account. Is it no longer the case with Dropbox that
if you link your work and personal account, and your employer removes your
work credentials, then all your personal files get deleted?

~~~
johns
That is no longer the case. Using Dropbox for Business gives you two separate
boxes and the admin for the business one cannot see or access the files from
your personal one.

------
wesm
Integration between Box and Office was announced at BoxWorks in September, so
this shouldn't be a shocker: [http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/03/box-pushes-its-
office-365-i...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/03/box-pushes-its-
office-365-integration-into-beta/)

------
felixrieseberg
As the Microsoftie in this thread I feel compelled to point out that you don't
need an extensive partnership with us to integrate with office.

And I'm not talking about the plugin development hell (never had to work with
it, but that seemed, erm, "difficult"). Feel free to reach out to me if you
have questions, or just read the docs yourself
([http://dev.office.com/](http://dev.office.com/)).

~~~
tkmcc
Quick question: why aren't there any code samples [0] in C/C++? It would be
nice to at least have a documented C++ WinRT API to work with for those of us
that still write native desktop applications/services. I'm sure other folks
across the company would agree ;)

[0]: [http://dev.office.com/code-samples](http://dev.office.com/code-samples)

~~~
felixrieseberg
Take this as my own personal opinion, but before I went back into engineering,
I worked with a bunch of developers out there to integrate with all kinds of
our stuff - and outside of game development, C/C++ isn't the most popular
choice. We have some code samples [0], but I see what you mean.

The office team moving away from the old plugin model and opening up the gates
for JS apps and REST APIs made life dramatically easier for a lot of folks. So
I assume that samples were written with the most popular choices in mind.
Internally, C++ is king [0], of course.

It's also worth pointing out that we always accept code samples from the
community :)

[0]:
[https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/office/site/search?f%5B0%5D....](https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/office/site/search?f%5B0%5D.Type=ProgrammingLanguage&f%5B0%5D.Value=C%2B%2B&f%5B0%5D.Text=C%2B%2B)
[1]: [http://cppcon.org/bonus-talk-cxx-in-ms-
office-2014/](http://cppcon.org/bonus-talk-cxx-in-ms-office-2014/)

------
gum_ina_package
Whoa, hell just froze over. I wonder how the OneDrive team feels about this?
This kind of a decision was made at the highest levels of the company.

~~~
funkyy
It sounds more like Microsoft wanting to bring Dropbox in to its influence
area. Possible acquisition, lobbying strategy or marketing stunt sounds right.

~~~
free2rhyme214
No it sounds like Microsoft wants its users to use Office documents as opposed
to Google Drive.

Box and Dropbox support office formats which makes sense why they'd partner
with them to perpetuate this usage.

------
edpichler
Microsoft integrating with competitor's products, this sounds news to me. A
really good move, for both companies.

~~~
sheetjs
It's a good move for Microsoft, but it's not entirely obvious if this is a
good move for dropbox or the storage ecosystem.

For example, Box is also working with Microsoft: [http://content.box.com/box-
for-office-365](http://content.box.com/box-for-office-365) \-- I would expect
integrations with other platforms in the future as well. If the consumer
experience is driven around Office apps rather than around the Dropbox app,
then at one point the cloud storage solutions truly become interchangeable.

~~~
pioul
> then at one point the cloud storage solutions truly become interchangeable

I remember one famous Steve saying to Drew Houston that Dropbox was a feature
rather than a product. I'd say the need for such a thing as Dropbox made
"Dropbox as a standalone product" possible, but in a world where every service
starts having its own integrated "cloud" backup service, storage and sync do
start looking like a feature.

------
johnloeber
Oh, this is great news. Dropbox is a great product (no offense, OneDrive), and
it'll make the entire Office Workflow a great deal cleaner and easier.

I'm also glad to see integration across cloud services. I think this will
improve the consumer experience.

------
IDrive
Hey Folks. Thomas from IDrive. Just wanted to point out that we offer private
key encryption to our users. That means no one, not even Condoleezza Rice, can
access your data except you.

~~~
xs
But what happens if I lose my key? Is my data inaccessible forever after?

~~~
IDrive
Yes that would be the case. For the user's security, we do not store their
private key on our servers. But we make sure to give ample warning about this
circumstance on our private key page. Hope that helps!

------
JBNixx
This is an interesting move from Microsoft.

It will create some competition for OneDrive. But Office 365 subscribers now
get unlimited OneDrive space as part of the subscription.

My bet is Dropbox integration might get some Dropbox users to buy Office 365.
When they realize they get unlimited OneDrive space they might switch to
OneDrive.

Seems like a good move to be honest.

------
brunnsbe
"We’ll also be releasing a Dropbox app for Windows Phone and Windows tablet
users in the coming months."

Not a day too early for the Windows Phone official app and another tick off
the list of missing apps for Microsoft's mobile platform.

------
zaroth

      We know that much of the world relies on a combination of
      Dropbox and Microsoft Office to get work done. In fact,
      Dropbox is home to over 35 billion Office documents,
      spreadsheets, and presentations.
    

See, you already lost me as a customer by highlighting the level of access you
have into your customer's private data, and your willingness to exploit it for
commercial gain.

~~~
marvy
How could they run their service without this access?

~~~
zaroth
See Tarsnap. Good cryptography means you don't have to trust the hosting
provider. Obviously Dropbox doesn't offer that so then all we have left is how
much we trust Dropbox not to look, and to treat their customers' data privacy
as sacrosanct. Apparently that's not the case either, since they are scanning
your folder content for marketing purposes.

------
ryanhunt
This is great news! Although I imagine this will complicate things for those
organisations that block access to Dropbox :)

------
jmcdowell
Very interesting, just wondering but do people think this benefits one company
more than the other?

I originally thought Microsoft as its a great reason to keep Word relevant by
teaming up with such a used storage platform and not succumbing to Google
docs, but is that offset by dropbox being able to enter the enterprise world?

------
skrebbel
As an Office customer and a Dropbox customer, I can't help but have mixed
feelings. Office already has "direct" OneDrive integration and it's pretty
useless, how could it be any better on Dropbox?

The whole thing about Dropbox is that _just works_. Files are files, folders
are folders, if I move them about they move, etc. The only problem with
Dropbox and Office is how Office locks the files so they're only synced after
I close the Office program, not after every Ctrl+S. Fix that, and it's
integrated.

The whole "save in the cloud" nonsense that desktop Office programs have these
days feels like a mistake. I can understand how with iOS's "no files" design,
this is the only way forward, but on desktop? Please let it stop.

~~~
dfrey
> I can understand how with iOS's "no files" design, this is the only way
> forward, but on desktop? Please let it stop.

Apparently mobile is the future and the desktop experience must be crippled to
unify it with the mobile experience.

Personally, I don't understand how anyone gets real work done on tablets and
phones. Sure there are some pretty silos, but trying to move data between
silos is usually a nightmare.

~~~
swartkrans
> and the desktop experience must be crippled to unify it

Windows crippled their desktop experience for Windows 8 and 8.1 and are
reversing it in Windows 10. No other operating system crippled their system in
this way. So _must_ is an unwarranted intensifier. Mistakes were made, things
were learned, what you're saying isn't true.

------
hanley
It's interesting that the images show the Office app being used on an iPad
instead of a Surface.

------
Oculus
This is very peculiar. From past Dropbox acquisitions, one can extrapolate
they're almost certainly working on online collaboration tools. I wonder if
Dropbox is using this as a way to gain footholds in large enterprise.

~~~
free2rhyme214
Of course. Partnering with OEM's like Dell and integration in Office gives you
access to more users and revenue.

------
pluma
Considering the content of other revelations in the form of "X is in your Y"
(and the general "I'm in your X, Y-ing your Zs" meme), this seems like an odd
choice for a _positive_ article.

------
wslh
The managed file transfer sector is hot and there is no winner yet. Even a YC
company called WireOver [1] is working in this space.

A little bit precient, my company developed a free Outlook add-on to send
dropbox files as attachments [2] in 2012.

\- [1] [http://www.wireover.com/](http://www.wireover.com/)

\- [2] [http://blog.nektra.com/main/2012/05/23/integrating-
dropbox-w...](http://blog.nektra.com/main/2012/05/23/integrating-dropbox-with-
microsoft-outlook/)

------
chmars
Dropbox isn't in my office although I really like Dropbox. However, legal
compliance is important in an office environment and Dropbox simply does not
provide the necessary data privacy to store business secrets or staff records.

Sorry, Dropbox.

(Yeah, alternatives are a problem: Wuala is dying and Spideroak isn't much
better easier. Tresorit might be a future alternative but in spite of having
their current version published as 2.x, they have still some way to go …)

------
us0r
I wonder if this is an exclusive deal (no Google Apps).

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Karunamon
Dropbox's big benefit for me, their pricing and unethical board members aside,
is the sheer number of ancillary services that it works with. Odds are if some
random desktop or mobile app has implemented a sync-between-devices service,
it's using Dropbox.

That feature is more important to me than just the file storage. Google Drive
will become a lot more useful once developers start picking it up.

------
seshakiran
Good move. Will we see Dropbox part of MS soon?

~~~
free2rhyme214
Drew didn't sell to Steve Jobs, why would he sell to Microsoft?

~~~
jonlucc
It's possible that it is becoming a more difficult space to compete in. There
are now several companies (MS, Google) that can use it as a mechanism for
lock-in or subsidize the costs in another way. If Dropbox wants to compete,
their margins over AWS pricing will get very thin, and Google et al can still
undercut them.

~~~
free2rhyme214
Correct! Actually what's coming is free or unlimited storage from MS and
Google as Levie has pointed out awhile ago.

When that happens the only way Box or Dropbox makes money is from businesses
because MS and Google will want you in their eco-system.

------
lamby
> Dropbox is home to over 35 billion Office documents, spreadsheets, and
> presentations

I was at least one order of magnitude out.

~~~
Istof
that is only about 117 files per user if there is still 300 million users

------
cetra3
For anyone looking for an Open Source alternative:

[https://owncloud.org](https://owncloud.org)

------
preillyme
I'm looking forward to accessing Dropbox files from the Office app and saving
new files to Dropbox.

------
willyt
Why does nobody ever mention BitTorrent sync as an alternative in these
discussions? Is there some reason why it's not favoured that I have missed?
Edit: Just in case this reads as baiting somehow, it's not it's a genuine
question.

------
arrowgunz
I'm surprised by Microsoft's move here. Why would Microsoft not use OneDrive
instead of Dropbox? Dropbox is surely a great product but Microsoft has
something similar already. Am I missing something?

~~~
macspoofing
My guess: you either push for universal adoption of Office and Office formats
or OneDrive. Office is a bigger deal for Microsoft than OneDrive so they went
with the former.

------
ape4
So they are just using the Dropbox API like anyone else can do?

~~~
reledi
Probably, but no one really cares _how_ they did it, it's _that_ they did it.

------
bhartzer
So, how long until Microsoft buys Dropbox? Seems kind of strange that they
would not be integrating OneDrive into Office rather than Dropbox.

~~~
pibefision
My hope is that will never happend. It's just hope. Since FoxPro many years
ago, there is not a single acquisition by Microsoft that turned in a great
product or an improvement to the end user (please, include in this scope
Groove Networks, whichi was great at that time).

~~~
tiffanyh
There's lots of good Microsoft acquisitions since FoxPro. Like:

\- Visio

\- Bungie Software (Halo)

\- Groove

etc...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft)

~~~
free2rhyme214
Yeah but has any of it got better?

Skype, Halo, Minecraft? I think not.

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jstalin
This only seems to be integration with Office web and mobile apps. I don't see
integration with Office desktop apps.

~~~
gumby
Don't the desktop apps simply work automatically with DB via the filesystem?

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shurcooL
I really wish I could edit .txt files in the iOS Dropbox app instead. I wonder
how much it will increase the app size.

------
m_st
That's great news, though a little late. The new iOS 8 document picker allows
this in a transparent manner for any storage provider supporting it.

Edit: here's the documentation:
[https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/FileMa...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/DocumentPickerProgrammingGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html)

------
Angostura
So does this ability to edit in the Dropbox app mean I no longer have any need
to buy the iOS versions of Office?

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georgehaake
Condoleezza Rice is in your Office

------
jostmey
Does this increase the chances that Microsoft will try to buy Dropbox in the
future?

------
tn13
Wait. This does not make sense given that MS already provides OneDrive.

------
fiatjaf
"Dropbox is home to over 35 billion Office documents, spreadsheets, and
presentations."

So they're reading the files in Dropbox and its contents to know they're
Office documents?

~~~
noir_lord
Did you think they were not?

How do you think they generate thumbnails and such?.

~~~
fiatjaf
Ah, they do that? That's cool!

------
apulanta
Why would anyone send anything important into a 3rd party cloud storage? Even
if you encrypt your files before sending? Really why?

~~~
jakozaur
Convenience. People need to get stuff done and sharing/syncing is often
required.

Most of people don't have time/knowledge to setup any shared file storage.

------
Applico
we use exchange + dropbox, so this will be a nice feature

------
NW_Preneuer
DB has now become boring. MS is a boring company.

------
yim
bye bye box.net?

------
modifier
There are options out there (that don't have ties to the US military-
industrial complex). Check out the free WPS Office. The 2014 beta version has
free online backup too: [http://www.wps.com/](http://www.wps.com/)

------
gummywormsyum
Does this mean Condoleezza Rice will be able to see everything that I'm
editing in Office??

~~~
vlunkr
Condoleezza Rice doesn't care what you are editing in office.

~~~
ProAm
Her friends do.

------
pearjuice
Yet another (succesful) attempt of Office to stay integrated into every
household. I wish the entire Office suite would kust die over night but sadly
it is too settled. There is no competition either or severely crippled.

~~~
Kluny
Well, there's Open Office, Libre Office (both free) and Scrivener (paid), and
tons of high end professional typesetting software - I'd say there's plenty of
competition, but Office is winning because so far it's still the most
accessible and useful for most people. It may be that it's the best of a bad
lot, but I still choose it over LibreOffice etc.

------
sporkenfang
Dropbox is banned on my office network. Therefore, at least for me, this is a
bit useless.

------
peterkelly
Didn't SunOS have pretty much exactly this in 1985?

It's sad to see things like this being touted as "new".

------
stangeek
To me this sounds very much like "Microsoft is buying Dropbox in the next 6
months"...

~~~
cwyers
What would Microsoft want Dropbox for? They don't have any infrastructure
Microsoft would want (MS runs Azure, while Dropbox just rents off AWS),
Microsoft has OneDrive clients for most of the platforms Dropbox is on... it
doesn't seem to me that Dropbox has anything Microsoft can't just add to their
own service.

~~~
ryanhunt
1\. Market reach, it's where the customers are. Compare the sheer number of
apps that have native Dropbox integration, with those that have OneDrive.
While it's far from scientific, nearly everyone I know has a Dropbox account -
very few have a OneDrive account.

2\. It makes their own OneDrive service seem even more competitive. Why pay
for Dropbox when you can buy Office365 for about the same price and get
unlimited storage?

------
tkinom
Not sure how is this good news for Dropbox?

MS is giving office 365 customer free unlimited cloud storage.

Now M$ can tell their office (probably soon to be office 365 ) customers:
"Good News, we have dropbox support for you, but BTW checkout out our
unlimited cloud storage for free too."

For me, it is a bit like MS in 90 said we have strong competitor call Netscape
while pre install IE for free to kill Netscape. It is assimilation strategy
from the old play book.

Dropbox has little choose on this as Box are doing it and their enterprise
customers might also demand it. They have to the poison pill.

~~~
mh8h
It's good for Dropbox, because they can push further into the enterprise
market. When business users try to decide between Dropbox and OneDrive, Office
integration won't be an issue for Dropbox any more.

Dropbox has its own merits over OneDrive. OneDrive is not as friendly and
feature-complete as Dropbox is. And Dropbox has far better APIs when it comes
to integrating with other services.

And as far as Microsoft is concerned, the partnership improves people's
productivity.

------
halviti
For me, the fact that Microsoft worked directly with the FBI to integrate
OneDrive into PRISM makes the whole product something I would never touch, so
it's great to see alternatives picking up the slack.

[http://cryptome.org/2014/11/ms-onedrive-nsa-
prism.htm](http://cryptome.org/2014/11/ms-onedrive-nsa-prism.htm)

~~~
api
All the major cloud vendors are surveillance collaborators.

... and I have to ask: do they have any choice? Can you say _no_ to the
national security state? If I were in charge of a company with employees who
have families and fiscal responsibilities, I can't say that I could. I'm sure
any request from those quarters comes with an implied "we wouldn't want
anything bad to happen to your company, now would we?"

The only way I can imagine a company saying no is if it were privately held
and the largest investors were on board, and most of these companies are
public. Being public makes you subject to all kinds of "soft power."

~~~
justcommenting
this is a political problem, but can also be addressed as an engineering
problem: [https://leastauthority.com/](https://leastauthority.com/) and
[https://www.tahoe-lafs.org/](https://www.tahoe-lafs.org/)

