Dropbox for Business adds Active Directory integration, remote Windows installation, shared folder API

Cloud file sharing company Dropbox today announced new security and administrative capabilities for its Dropbox for Business tier of service.

Three new types of administrative roles are available to provide levels of privileges to employees, and admins can now more easily turn on two-step verification, Dropbox for Business head of product Rob Baesman wrote in a blog post on the news today. There’s also a new shared folders API, which will allow cloud security companies like Elastica and Netskope to do more with shared folders in their apps.

Two other updates make Dropbox for Business more Microsoft-friendly. There’s a new connector in beta for Microsoft’s Active Directory database for identity management, and admins can now remotely install Dropbox for Business on many Windows computers at once.

Dropbox has added these features — not to mention collaboration capability for Microsoft Office files — despite that Microsoft fields OneDrive, a product that competes with Dropbox. It makes sense, though, because many companies provide Windows computers to their employees.

Today’s additions could help Dropbox look more palatable to big companies considering cloud-based file sharing and synchronization services. Business-oriented Box went public in January, and Microsoft and Google have been signing up more businesses for their cloud file sharing services. There are also file sharing services that only rely partly on clouds, like Egnyte and EMC’s Syncplicity.

San Francisco-based Dropbox started in 2007 and claims to have more than 300 million registered users, with more than 100,000 Dropbox for Business customers, including Hyatt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yahoo.