Dropbox chief executive Drew Houston said his company's new partnership with Microsoft may seem surprising at first. But in reality, it was a case of two companies listening to its customers and giving them what they wanted.
"This is pretty unusual for both of us," Houston said today in an interview on stage at the Web Summit in Dublin. "But we realized that one of the most important things our users do is collaborate on Office documents. And since Microsoft released its Office app for the iPad, this was one of the most requested features from users. This is going to be great for a lot of people."
Earlier in the day, Microsoft announced that it was integrating Dropbox directly into Office for mobile and the Web.
The move is just the latest in Dropbox's ongoing evolution. Houston said now that companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all focused on file sharing and storage, Dropbox is trying to find ways to differentiate itself. That includes developing new services to help people organize their growing number of files in the cloud, as well as finding new ways to let users collaborate.
"The whole industry is evolving, and this is the next phase," he said.
Houston said in the coming year Dropbox would focus on adding offices and employees outside the U.S., where 70 percent of its users are located. In fact, Dropbox now even has more customers in Europe than the U.S.
Perhaps the most important thing we learned, however, is that given the right circumstances, Houston will take the stage in an Irish bar and sing songs by Oasis:
Dropbox CEO and founder @drewhouston singing some Oasis on his pub crawl at #websummit tonight pic.twitter.com/UhN66fwJ2w
— Paddy Cosgrave (@paddycosgrave) November 3, 2014