From InfoWorld: In the latest example of Microsoft partnering with a major competitor, the company has struck a deal with Dropbox to improve interoperability between Office and Dropbox's cloud storage and file sharing services for consumers and businesses.
The partnership, announced Tuesday, creates a "coopetition" relationship, since Microsoft's OneDrive and OneDrive for Business compete against Dropbox's namesake consumer service and against Dropbox for Business.
The motivation is to make life easier for the company's vast number of shared customers, which currently store 35 billion Office files in Dropbox. While in a perfect Microsoft world, all Office users would rely on OneDrive and OneDrive for Business, Dropbox has amassed a user base of about 300 million people. Meanwhile, Office has 1.2 billion users.
The thrust behind the deal is similar to the one motivating eyebrow-raising partnerships Microsoft has struck recently, including a cloud computing deal with IBM in October and a tie-up with Salesforce.com in May. CEO Satya Nadella has said the company will seek partnership opportunities with competitors as long as the deals yield a significant benefit for its customers by making key products from Microsoft and third parties work better together.
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