Microsoft Office and Dropbox now play nice in your browser

Microsoft and Dropbox have revealed the next stage of their newfound romance, announcing deep integrations between Office and Dropbox on the web.

Dropbox first announced Project Harmony a year ago to the day, which is effectively a Dropbox layer atop Microsoft Office that facilitates real-time collaboration. The fruits of the partnership span various facets of their businesses, but the plan was always to enable Office and Dropbox to work well together on phones, tablets, and the web.

Having introduced support on iOS and Android back in November, it’s now the companies’ web-based services’ turn to play nice. This means that when you’re working in Microsoft Office Online you can easily access your Dropbox files and folders without navigating between two different services. You can also save new files from Office directly to Dropbox.

Above: Dropbox & Office

While this news was expected, it’s nice to see it finally come to fruition, and it’s evidence that Dropbox is working hard to extend its usefulness beyond a simple standalone cloud-storage service.

With Amazon recently announcing ridiculously low cloud-storage prices, the race to the bottom is very much on, so it’s imperative that Dropbox find as many allies and partnerships as possible moving forward. And for the tens of millions of people who use Dropbox, this removes the friction from using Microsoft Office online, so it’s a win for both companies.