Microsoft Expands Third-Party Cloud Support With Box For Office Online

Box will be working with Microsoft to offer deep Office integration, the cloud storage provider has announced. Starting with online editing support from Wednesday, users eventually will be able to edit files stored in Box through the Office apps on their PC.

In a blog post on its website, the company revealed Box for Office Online as the first step in a plan for comprehensive Box support across the Office range. From Wednesday, users will be able to open and edit Word, PowerPoint and Excel files online from their Box accounts, with sharing support still in the works. Later this year, the two companies will work together to bring native support for Box to Office for Windows, iOS and Android.

"Since Office files currently account for almost half of all content that has been edited and then uploaded to Box, this integration will hugely impact productivity for our customers," said David Still, VP of mobile products at Box.

Microsoft already offers cloud storage through its OneDrive solution, which offers several tiers of pricing from 15GB for free up to 1TB for $6.99 per month. The top tier also includes Office 365, Microsoft's subscription-based software service. Box, on the other hand, offers a free tier at 10GB and costs $10 per month for 100GB of storage.

Last year, Microsoft announced a similar collaboration with Dropbox, another cloud storage competitor. In February of this year, Microsoft updated its iOS Office apps to support iCloud Drive, Apple's cloud storage solution. Microsoft seems to be looking to improve its Office offerings over promoting its own cloud packages, giving users a range of cloud options to make the apps more useful on mobile devices with limited storage options.