In April we announced integration between Dropbox on the web and Microsoft Office Online. Now it seems that Box Inc. is following in the footsteps of one of its closest rivals by doing the same thing. Box reported that that there are more than a billion Word, Excel and PowerPoint files saved in its cloud and the company now wants to make it easier to create and edit Office files without having to download and re-upload the said files.

Box stated in a blog post, “People can work completely from a web browser without opening a single installed application – so any computer (regardless of the operating system) can instantly become a workstation. This not only makes working from anywhere more flexible and seamless, it also makes the collaboration process more secure, because it eliminates the need to repeatedly download files on different machines.” Not only should this save a little time, but when working out of Box on Office files users have the full Office Online interface to work with.

Why Microsoft would snuggle up to its competitors in the cloud, namely DropBox and Box, when it has its own cloud service, OneDrive, might seem like giving a little too much away. But as one analyst put it, perhaps the sacrifice works in Microsoft’s favor as Redmond sees more Office users more important than more OneDrive users. OneDrive is still not nearly as popular as the aforementioned duo. The relationship between Box and Microsoft is to get even closer later in the year when the two companies collaborate on integrations with native Office clients on iOS, Android, and Windows, according to Box.

Speaking of going to bed with a rival – at times a bitter one – Microsoft didn’t have much to say, only that the deal works for the good folks out there. “By working together, we can help people boost their overall productivity,” said Microsoft in a blog post.

Photo Credit: Box