Microsoft has recently signed a deal with Dropbox

Nov 5, 2014 14:52 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has recently announced a deal with Dropbox that would integrate the cloud-based file storage service in the Office productivity suite, but more goodies will actually result from this partnership.

An official Dropbox app for Windows Phone and Windows 8.1 will also be released in the coming months, Microsoft reveals, as the two companies continue their collaboration in the cloud industry.

Obviously, such an app would really come in handy to Windows Phone users, as many also own a Dropbox account, but OneDrive continues to be the cloud-based storage service of choice for the majority of users, pretty much because it's directly integrated into the operating system.

Microsoft does not expect OneDrive to be impacted by the agreement with Dropbox and wants at the same time to benefit from the increasing user base of this particular cloud service. At this point, there are more than 300 million registered accounts for Dropbox and approximately 35 billion documents stored in them.

Starting 2015, Dropbox users will be prompted to download and install Office in order to view documents in their accounts, while those accessing files from the browser will be redirected to Office Online for quick editing capabilities.

As far as the Windows Phone and Windows 8.1 apps are concerned, there's no word on their release date, but expect them to be here in just a few weeks.