Dropbox has unveiled the biggest overhaul yet to the way users experience its software as it seeks to push further into the productivity market dominated by Microsoft and Google.
Dropbox is promoting a new desktop workspace and updates to its website and mobile app to combine different files, work software and teams of employees. Customers will be able to create, access and share Google documents, spreadsheets and slides and open Microsoft Office files, according to a presentation by CEO Drew Houston at an event on Tuesday in San Francisco.
The company also announced deals with other partners including Slack Technologies, Zoom Technologies and Atlassian that will help Dropbox expand into popular areas of workplace functions and capture more of employees’ time as they build, share and work with software files.
While the company already has partnerships with Microsoft and Google that allow customers to use their programs, the goal ultimately is to get workers to do more in Dropbox itself. As productivity software increasingly moves to the cloud, businesses including Slack and Atlassian are trying to carve out larger spaces for their products, competing to be chosen as the software that will manage office communications, file sharing and collaboration projects for the next decade.
Dropbox users can opt in to the new desktop app, and company software administrators can choose to have their teams included. Other features will be rolling out to users over the next few weeks, the company said. — Reported by Candy Cheng and Dina Bass, (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP
