Dropbox is in your Office

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

by ben336 • 12 years ago

348 191 12 years ago

blog.dropbox.com

gum_ina_package• 12 years ago

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.

NicoJuicy• 12 years ago

The more integrations, the better....

dudus• 12 years ago

Why would they feel bad? They probably want to have a successful product not because the user has no option but for its own merits.

simonh2• 12 years ago

Try that line on Bill Gates in his prime.

funkyy2• 12 years ago

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

free2rhyme2145• 12 years ago

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.

izolate• 12 years ago

Kind of like what Microsoft did to Facebook.

jbigelow76• 12 years ago

Office is THE cash cow, OneDrive is (probably) a loss leader. Anything that can be done to ensure Office's continued near ubiquity, reduce usage friction, and shore up beach heads against competitors looking for an area to drive a wedge in will be done.

marcosdumay• 12 years ago

Well, that's really a new Microsoft.

Just a short while ago, anything that could be done to make their products more integrated, and increase lock-in would be done. It didn't really matter if the benefited product made money or not. (For a very visible blow, look at the Windows Phone and Windows 8.)

It's great to see that changing.

pearjuice• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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.

stangeek• 12 years ago

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

cwyers• 12 years ago

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.

johansch• 12 years ago

Users and paying customers?

ryanhunt2• 12 years ago

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?

pistle• 12 years ago

They could feasibly even create slopes that could pull dropbox into renting in Azure to achieve specific value-adds with MS integration. Overall, it looks like a plus for consumers with not a specific downside being described by anyone (yet?).

bluedino• 12 years ago

They could make them switch to Azure like they made Hotmail switch from BSD to NT

wesm• 12 years ago

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...

Oculus• 12 years ago

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.

free2rhyme2145• 12 years ago

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

ape4• 12 years ago

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

reledi• 12 years ago

Probably, but no one really cares how they did it, it's that they did it.

us0r2• 12 years ago

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

carlmcqueen2• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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?

carlmcqueen2• 12 years ago

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

seshakiran• 12 years ago

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

free2rhyme2145• 12 years ago

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

tptacek• 12 years ago

Presumably because Microsoft will make a better offer.

jonlucc• 12 years ago

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.

spain• 12 years ago

I seem to remember them rejecting Google too so I highly doubt it.

jstalin• 12 years ago

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

gumby2• 12 years ago

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

ryanhunt2• 12 years ago

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

jostmey• 12 years ago

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

m_st• 12 years ago

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...

johnloeber• 12 years ago

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.

lamby• 12 years ago

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

I was at least one order of magnitude out.

Istof• 12 years ago

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

bhartzer• 12 years ago

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

pibefision• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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...

mikestew• 12 years ago

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

Plenty of FoxPro stuff ended up in SQL Server. Client cursor engine is the first thing that comes to mind (RDO, too, IIRC). The product itself was allowed to languish, but the good parts went into other things.

But for the most part I'd say you're spot on. I can't think of anything else that ultimately went on better things under Microsoft's flag, or benefited other products with the acquired product's technology.

dheera• 12 years ago

Ugh, I hope it doesn't get acquired by Microsoft, of all companies. I use Dropbox specifically because it doesn't try to be too much, which makes it extremely flexible. In fact I use it for a million things other than file sharing.

shliachtx• 12 years ago

OneDrive is already integrated into Office. Microsoft is just ensuring that Office is a platform that everyone uses even if they don't use other Microsoft services.

Eyght• 12 years ago

It's also a way to push their OneDrive team to make a better product in true Gates competitive spirit.

maccard• 12 years ago

Onedrive is deep in Office. Latest version defaults to trying to get you to save on your OneDrive

gummywormsyum• 12 years ago

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

vlunkr2• 12 years ago

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

Multics• 12 years ago

It should 'Office' -- 'office'.title() -- as it's a proper noun.

Rice probably doesn't care about software in any way. She's a name which helps DB sell product. She's a net positive for their brand.

ProAm• 12 years ago

Her friends do.

andyjohnson0• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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.

tkinom• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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.

matthewmacleod• 12 years ago

What? That makes no sense.

Dropbox has moved from "no interoperability with Office" to "interoperability with Office". How can that be a bad thing?

stinos• 12 years ago

a bit like MS in 90

don't you mean M$ there :P No offense meant, but you know, it's a bit difficult to take people serious when they use terms like that.

halviti• 12 years ago

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

justcommenting2• 12 years ago

I hope Microsoft and Dropbox both improve their security, but Dropbox has a history of lying to customers when it comes to the security of its products, e.g. http://www.wired.com/2011/05/dropbox-ftc/

lern_too_spel• 12 years ago

Dropbox also has to hand your data over upon receiving a court order. The only difference is Microsoft is less likely to bungle the request.

ljk• 12 years ago

well maybe Dropbox isn't so much better

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/dropbox-rice-controversy/

http://www.drop-dropbox.com/

api• 12 years ago

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."

justcommenting2• 12 years ago

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

hanley• 12 years ago

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

fiatjaf2• 12 years ago

"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• 12 years ago

Did you think they were not?

How do you think they generate thumbnails and such?.

fiatjaf2• 12 years ago

Ah, they do that? That's cool!

bastawhiz• 12 years ago

It's unlikely that they're trawling your uploaded content. Dropbox does some amount of preprocessing (e.g., to allow document preview and photo thumbnails), which also collects information like MIME type. I would assume they simply ran an aggregate query against this sort of metadata, or collected these stats at the time of upload.

lentil_soup3• 12 years ago

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?.

eli• 12 years ago

I find that Google Drive just doesn't work as well. We routinely get files that are "unable to sync" but manually retrying them works. I've seen it happen on OS X and Windows. I think it just doesn't handle locked files as well. Dropbox "just works."

skizm• 12 years ago

Does google drive have syncing folders on all systems like dropbox where I can just drag and drop? windows, mac, linux, android, ios? I actually don't know, not being sarcastic or anything.

icelancer• 12 years ago

They do. I think this is a fair question because it's not very well popularized. But it works great.

cstross2• 12 years ago

Last time I looked at the Google Drive terms of service -- which was admittedly years ago (I ought to check again) -- they were basically unacceptable for me because Google were demanding a perpetual non-exclusive copyright license to everything I stored there which would have allowed for unlimited reproduction or use for any purpose Google felt like making of it. It looked like your standard boilerplate land-grab, and unfortunately it was incompatible with my business (which involves selling exclusive (but time and scope limited) licenses to use copyrighted materials I produce.)

Dropbox's copyright clause was much more tightly drawn and not incompatible with my business model.

Rumudiez• 12 years ago

This comment made me curious. When I went to check the actual terms of service, I found this line:

"Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours."

which is suddenly followed up by:

"When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps)."

So while you own your intellectual property, Google does take a copy of all rights pertinent to the work. It's hard for me to say why Google would do this; alienating what I'd imagine to be a significant userbase of content generators.

Source: http://www.google.com/policies/terms/

VLM• 12 years ago

To the best of my knowledge, the only provider listed above with an official linux client is Dropbox. It works for me.

Google Drive has a very unofficial yet supposedly usable 3rd party client at http://www.lbreda.com/grive/

microtonal3• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, development seems to have stalled:

https://github.com/Grive/grive

There is also a FUSE client written in OCaml:

https://github.com/astrada/google-drive-ocamlfuse

katbyte2• 12 years ago

I hear insync has a decent Google drive client for Linux.

Not free but its pretty cheap

ChrisPebble• 12 years ago

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.

lentil_soup3• 12 years ago

I can't remember having those sync issues. I do remember a couple of times it was hard to tell if it had finished synching as it seemed to be doing nothing visually, that's the only issue I remember.

Will look into Zocalo to see what they offer.

cowabunga• 12 years ago

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).

katbyte2• 12 years ago

it depends if your talking about one drive for business or personal.

OneDrive for business is built on top of SharePoint and is well known to have a multitude of limitations and issues and I would never recommend anyone use it.

Onedrive personal I hear is much more reliable but I've not had any personal experience with it.

I use Google drive and have found it to be very reliable, when i have the odd sync issue (fails to sync 1-5 files out of 3000 files/150gb) i just click retry and successfully uploads them.

CPAhem• 12 years ago

I used Google Drive extensively, but found the desktop client lacking reliability. I switched to Syncdocs [1] which syncs to Google Drive more robustly and is way faster. Google's storage pricing beats Dropbox, but their client software does not.

[1] http://syncdocs.com

xedarius• 12 years ago

I never tried these guys as their pricing seemed too good to be true.

https://hubic.com/

Maybe someone can comment if they've used them in anger.

dylz• 12 years ago

They are run by what is arguably the largest hosting provider[1]. It's definitely going to "work" mind you, but outside of EU the speeds may be a tad abysmal.

It's standard OpenStack storage and it's possible to mount FUSE drive, so no terrible client. I use it and have no complaints, just don't expect 1 ms read times as a mounted drive, etc.

[1] http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/05/14/whos-... (ctrl+f ovh)

bithush4• 12 years ago

Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Box. They are all the same when it comes to your privacy to be honest. I wouldn't "trust" any of them with very private things. I use them for convenience of stuff I want easy access to/share with family but don't want to just stick up in the public internet for all to see.

MichaelGG2• 12 years ago

Dropbox lied about their access to your documents. Dropbox disabled password authentication for their entire system for a bit, by accident. I'd say that makes them worse than competitors. The whole Ms Rice thing might also make it worse for some people.

We should be using Tarsnap. If only they had a windows client (which I use as a hypervisor, as it has better power and driver support on laptops).

killerpopiller• 12 years ago

privacy and secrecy are one problem with those, but why do I have to manually put relevant files in special-sync folders?

btsync makes more sense to me

yawgmoth• 12 years ago

I use https://www.copy.com/home/.

Copy is ran by Barracuda. My only current grief is the lack of 2 factor authentication, but they have stated that is on the near roadmap.

cerberusss• 12 years ago

Yeah, I use it and like it a lot so far. It's 20 GB free with a referral. I got mine up to 65 GB.

gumby2• 12 years ago

Is google drive an actual alternative to box/dropbox? I thought that if you uploaded (say) a .doc file, google drive changed it to a google docs file (which could be re-exported via docs->Word converter rather being copied out untransformed). This made me concerned that uploaded pictures would be down sampled etc.

I also seem to remember that if you click on a google doc file it opens a browser window rather than launching an app on your machine.

So I stopped trying to use it on my laptop. This system may have changed, or there may have been a way to avoid this.

I do use google docs/drive but only as a way to use docs that others have created and shared with me. I have noticed on iOS that opening docs shows a different set of files than opening the google drive app, which also does not reassure me.

It would be interesting to me if it were a true DB replacement. Of course since I now have to use Office 365 I just got unlimited Onedrive capacity so I may switch to that.

eslaught• 12 years ago

There is an option (and has been for a while now) to upload files to Google Drive without converting them to Google's formats. So your opaque binary blobs will stay opaque binary blobs.

That said, in my experience, Google Drive and Dropbox still differ on the handling of corner cases (e.g. symlinks, permissions and extended attributes, etc.). At the time I tested, Google Drive was lagging in most of these cases, but that may have improved by now.

At any rate: check that your use cases actually work before moving all your data!

cdash• 12 years ago

While Drive can do document conversions and it might even do that by default you can certainly tell it not to.

nashequilibrium• 12 years ago

Geeez, can we just stop with this, you are now giving your data to google which has your search history, email etc! If you going to have this stance, build your own solution and host it along with your own email and search engine. I personally fear facebook, google more than the NSA.

lentil_soup3• 12 years ago

For me it's not so much about the NSA as about her involvement in torture and war around the world. I know me "rage quitting" dropbox doesn't change a thing but it means something to me.

I know my own solution would be the best and so an actual question. Would it make sense to use private servers (think AWS) to run something custom made or would that just be exactly the same (they would still be able to read my stuff)?

josteink• 12 years ago

I stopped using Dropbox ... and have been using a mix of Google Drive and OneDrive and I must say I like them a lot better.

For a somewhat less platform-independent definition of better. Neither of those has Linux-clients, which for some people is a no-go.

Which means I'll stick to Dropbox for a good while more.

Bargs• 12 years ago

I've been using Insync as my Google Drive client on linux, and it seems to work ok.

kaydo_com_au• 12 years ago

you can use their web version for platform independent needs.

joaomsa• 12 years ago

Exactly the same reason why I stick with Dropbox

Even saying that I'm still occasionally let down by how much of a power drain it is. Even wrote a utility to manage it (shameless plug) https://github.com/joaomsa/powermonius

briandear• 12 years ago

That's so silly. Condi Rice is no worse than Zuckerberg or the Google people. If anyone thinks that Google or Facebook are somehow bastions of personal privacy, you're delusional. Condi Rice is actually an honorable person. I may disagree with her, but I don't have any doubts about her integrity -- contrasted with Google and Facebook.

As to your question about alternatives, I am starting to use Apple's iCloud Drive. Pretty cool so far.

I admittedly use Google products, but I am under no illusion that anything Google has, is likely fair game for the government.

gurkendoktor• 12 years ago

Have you read the actual arguments at http://www.drop-dropbox.com/?

Being involved in the gov't that started the terror scare and almost dragging my country in a disastrous war is quite something different than trying to nudge me into signing up for Google+. Torture, honorable, seriously??!

wowaname• 12 years ago

guys

archived storage on physical media you own

it's science

That's the end of my half-troll/half-serious response.

dabockster• 12 years ago

* Disclaimer: I currently have roughly 19GB for free on Dropbox through 5 years of hunting for promos. I've used about a quarter of it.

Dropbox is more modular, IMO. I've seen some cool tricks to run websites, backup Instagram photos, etc, all from Dropbox.

the_ancient• 12 years ago

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

Dropbox has a native linux client which can not be said for either OneDrive or Google Drive.

I use a mix of Dropbox and BTSync right now

mcroft• 12 years ago

There is onedrive-d, but it's in very early development and can be a bit buggy. Fortunately the bugs manifest in duplicate files, not missing files, but it's a bit of a hassle to mange after a while.

https://github.com/xybu/onedrive-d

xasos• 12 years ago

Isn't Box fully HIPAA-compliant?

tegeek• 12 years ago

I use www.Copy.com. It is a real alternate to Dropbox with more free space.

jmcdowell• 12 years ago

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?

wslh• 12 years ago

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/

- [2] http://blog.nektra.com/main/2012/05/23/integrating-dropbox-w...

shurcooL• 12 years ago

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

peterkelly• 12 years ago

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

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

edpichler• 12 years ago

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

amelius• 12 years ago

Makes you wonder why MS doesn't just release a protocol that all cloud service providers can hook into...

us0r2• 12 years ago

They pretty much have an API for everything now.

bobcostas55• 12 years ago

Microsoft integrating with competitor's products, this sounds news to me.

Or as it was previously known, "Embrace".

bithush4• 12 years ago

Indeed.

Embrace. Integrate Office with it. Extend. Buy DropBox. Extinguish. Merge DropBox with OneDrive.

Wow didn't expect this comment to bring on the downvotes.

sheetjs• 12 years ago

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 -- 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• 12 years ago

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.

arrowgunz• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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.

JBNixx• 12 years ago

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.

skrebbel• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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.

swartkrans3• 12 years ago

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.

Periodic• 12 years ago

What I think is the future for workstations and laptops is a web-integrated OS. Take Chrome OS as an example. These devices become more and more powerful as more and more of our data moves into the cloud.

I don't think anyone actually reviews, comments on or edits large documents on a tablet. That would be a nightmare. The most I've found bearable when reviewing papers on a tablet is highlighting. On a laptop you have the power of a full keyboard, which I can use to comfortably compose this comment, yet my laptop has almost no internal storage and all my documents are stored on the cloud.

This move is important for maintaining relevant, but I do think the insistence on tablets and phones is missing the whole of point of us making the data mobile.

vlunkr2• 12 years ago

Personally, I don't understand how anyone gets real work done on tablets and phones.

I think very few people do, aside from simple tasks like sending emails.

swartkrans3• 12 years ago

Well fortunately there are no changes happening to how it already works. It's just added features if you want them, if you don't then don't use them.

com2kid• 12 years ago

Office already has "direct" OneDrive integration and it's pretty useless, how could it be any better on Dropbox?

Useless?

Across my phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop, I would hardly call cloud file syncing useless.

tkmcc2• 12 years ago

Office already has "direct" OneDrive integration and it's pretty useless, how could it be any better on Dropbox?
The whole "save in the cloud" nonsense that desktop Office programs have these days feels like a mistake.

I feel exactly the opposite way. As a student, I have all of my schoolwork stored on OneDrive and I don't know how I would live without it anymore. I can access all of my documents from any computer via onedrive.com (very helpful when printing for free in a computer lab) and I can check and edit OneNote notebooks from my mobile device. I don't understand what you mean by desktop Office going for a "no files" design because it seems to be the opposite in my view.

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.

OneDrive can sync files that are being edited with an Office program. With this news, I'm sure Dropbox will have the same functionality soon.

apulanta• 12 years ago

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

jakozaur• 12 years ago

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.

brunnsbe• 12 years ago

"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.

preillyme• 12 years ago

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

georgehaake• 12 years ago

Condoleezza Rice is in your Office

felixrieseberg2• 12 years ago

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/).

tkmcc2• 12 years ago

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

felixrieseberg2• 12 years ago

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.... [1]: http://cppcon.org/bonus-talk-cxx-in-ms-office-2014/

Alex3917• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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.

yim• 12 years ago

bye bye box.net?

sporkenfang• 12 years ago

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

tn13• 12 years ago

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

Angostura• 12 years ago

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

pluma• 12 years ago

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.

chmars• 12 years ago

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 …)

modifier• 12 years ago

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/

cetra3• 12 years ago

For anyone looking for an Open Source alternative:

https://owncloud.org

IDrive2• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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

IDrive2• 12 years ago

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!

zaroth2• 12 years ago

  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• 12 years ago

How could they run their service without this access?

zaroth2• 12 years ago

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.

pinaceae• 12 years ago

those numbers also mean it is much harder to find anything in it or easier for you to hide shit.

NW_Preneuer• 12 years ago

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

willyt• 12 years ago

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.

Karunamon• 12 years ago

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.

Applico• 12 years ago

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

Dropbox is in your Office

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