Dropbox Teams Up With Microsoft; Amazon Offering Free Space

By Kevin Parrish
published

Want to save your Office files directly to Dropbox instead of Microsoft's OneDrive? Soon you can, thanks to a deal between Microsoft and Dropbox that was announced on Tuesday.

According to the two companies, customers will soon be able to access their Dropbox account through Microsoft's Office apps, which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. These Dropbox-stored Office files can be edited as well as shared using the built-in Dropbox sharing feature.

This collaboration will begin over the next several weeks with the Android and iOS smartphone and tablet apps for Office and Dropbox, followed by a connection between Office Online and Dropbox on the Web in the first half of 2015. A Dropbox app for Windows-based phones and tablets will be made available in the coming months.

After selecting a Dropbox account as a file's destination, Office users can browse folders and files in the Dropbox space and open them with the native Office app. Users can also load up the Dropbox app, navigate to Office files, and have the Dropbox app open the correct native Office app.

News of the Microsoft/Dropbox collaboration arrives after Microsoft's Chris Jones said that Office 365 subscribers will receive unlimited OneDrive storage for free. The rollout will take several months to complete, and customers will be notified by Microsoft once the free unlimited storage is added.

News of the collaboration also conveniently arrives as Amazon reveals that it's offering free unlimited photo storage for Prime subscribers called Prime Photos (opens in new tab). All photos are stored in Amazon Cloud Drive and can be uploaded from Android and iOS phones and tablets, Mac and Windows-based computers, as well as Amazon's own Fire Phone and Fire tablets.

For the uninitiated, Amazon Prime is a subscription service by Amazon that provides free 2-day delivery and access to streaming movies and TV shows, Kindle Owners' Lending Library, and Prime Music. Photos added to this service can be accessed through a number of devices including Fire TV, the Fire TV Stick, the PlayStation consoles, a number of Samsung Smart TVs and more.

Free unlimited online storage sounds like a good deal, but both Microsoft and Amazon are offering this service from behind a pay wall. They have the backend hardware to offer this kind of convenience to subscribers as well as third-party competitors that lease space, such as Dropbox using Amazon's Simple Storage Service 3 to store its user's files.

Will we see an explosion of free unlimited storage offerings bundled with services, or will the unlimited storage model crash much like unlimited data did in the smartphone segment?

Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Kevin Parrish
7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tom10167
    Very cool of MS to do that!
    Reply
  • ubercake
    Amazon gives you so much with the Prime membership now. Unlimited photos? From a home user standpoint, it's my primary reason for seeking a cloud storage provider. I was just about to lock myself into the Office365 subscription for the TB of storage that's included. Now, as a Prime member, I don't have to.
    Reply
  • firefoxx04
    I am a student and my school has a contract that allows all of us to have Office 365 for free on 5 computers and 5 devices, which is awesome. This news is even better because every single one of my systems and phones has dropbox.

    Office 365 makes saving to the same location over and over somewhat troubling compared to how easy they make it for the OneDrive. If they can have dropbox set as a default location that would be great. Right now dropbox is simply a folder that must be located when doing a "save as" but its nice to see them working together.
    Reply
  • alextheblue
    Very cool of MS to do that!
    It benefits MS too because it guarantees full official Dropbox support for all of Microsoft's devices, including their smartphones. So it's good for MS, Dropbox, and their collective users. Win.
    Amazon gives you so much with the Prime membership now. Unlimited photos? From a home user standpoint, it's my primary reason for seeking a cloud storage provider. I was just about to lock myself into the Office365 subscription for the TB of storage that's included. Now, as a Prime member, I don't have to.
    I like Amazon Prime and I think they have a lot to offer. But... a meager 1TB? You're a little behind, my friend. Office 365 subscribers are getting a bit more than that in the coming days.

    http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-one-drive-storage-office-365-subscription,27963.html
    Reply
  • universal remonster
    14515295 said:
    Amazon gives you so much with the Prime membership now. Unlimited photos? From a home user standpoint, it's my primary reason for seeking a cloud storage provider. I was just about to lock myself into the Office365 subscription for the TB of storage that's included. Now, as a Prime member, I don't have to.

    Actually, Microsoft is now giving unlimited space for One Drive with an Office 365 subscription, and it is not just limited to photo storage. http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/27/microsoft-office-365-onedrive-unlimited/

    Reply
  • ubercake
    14528024 said:
    14515295 said:
    Amazon gives you so much with the Prime membership now. Unlimited photos? From a home user standpoint, it's my primary reason for seeking a cloud storage provider. I was just about to lock myself into the Office365 subscription for the TB of storage that's included. Now, as a Prime member, I don't have to.

    Actually, Microsoft is now giving unlimited space for One Drive with an Office 365 subscription, and it is not just limited to photo storage. http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/27/microsoft-office-365-onedrive-unlimited/

    I see that and it's great but what is the 'wait in line' mentality for? Just give people the unlimited space. Amazon doesn't say certain Prime Members who check this box will be the first to get unlimited photo storage. Amazon says all Prime Members get unlimited photo storage. Why the waitlist for MS Office365 Home users?
    Reply
  • falchard
    Honestly, the only thing stopping Microsoft from doing things like this are competitors who don't want to work with Microsoft. They will put Office on a Macintosh even though Macs compete with their OS. Something like Cloud storage that Microsoft already gives for free is not really something that will hold them back. Just means they save some money on storage.
    Reply