For some odd reason, Google and Dropbox have never entered into partnerships despite how similar their services are, particularly Dropbox and Google Drive's storage solutions. That's changing now, though.
Dropbox just announced an agreement with Google that would allow G Suite users to open and edit files directly from Dropbox folders both on local and the cloud. That means users will be able to edit files on Dropbox using Docs, Sheets, Slides, and other G Suite services, without having to take the files from Dropbox, transfer them over to Google, and edit that way.
Google And Dropbox Cozy Up Together
The partnership is similar to the one Dropbox did with Microsoft a while back. The move makes sense considering over 50 percent of Dropbox users have a G Suite account. Up until this partnership, there hasn't been official ways of opening G Suite files on Dropbox.
"Dropbox is increasingly building out its content collaboration functionality with the freedom to use whatever tools [customers] want to use on whatever platform that they want to use," said Quentin Clark, Dropbox's senior VP of engineering, product, and design. "This partnership is another step on that journey."
How Will The Integrations Work?
Both companies are still trying to work out exactly how G Suite and Dropbox integrations are going to work, but they'll be available by the end of the year, said Clark. The premise of being able to open G Suite files on Dropbox and edit them directly is settled, though. How it's going to look and feel is what both companies are trying to work on.
"Our goal is to make G Suite accessible no matter what tools you bring to work, and these integrations help our shared customers better collaborate in the tools they use every day," said Ritcha Ranjan, director of product management at Google Cloud.
Besides editing tools, the partnership also brings integrations elsewhere, such as in Gmail and the just-released Hangouts Chat, where users will be able to generate Dropbox links right within emails, or share and preview Dropbox files right within Hangouts.
Dropbox IPO
The announcement comes at the heels of Dropbox filing for an initial public offering, signaling its intent to finally go public with the symbol DBX. The company has remained private for a long time, but there's been chatter over the years about when it'll eventually enter the stock exchange. It's hard say whether the company going public is in any way related to Google finally entering a partnership with Dropbox.
