Cloud storage provider Dropbox Inc on Tuesday announced a major update of its core software that will pull together a variety of work-related tools into one spot, part of the company's continued push to offer higher-profit services beyond raw storage space.
The company's new "workspace," announced at an event held in San Francisco, will let users create and share documents from Microsoft Corp's Office suite and Alphabet Inc's Google Docs from the main Dropbox window, as well as start conversations in services like Slack Technologies Inc or Zoom Video Communications Inc.
Dropbox, which started by charging for storage space, now has higher-priced plans for professional users that make more money off features like the ability to make the text in scanned documents searchable. The company also offers a range of business plans that give businesses more control of who can share which files.
In a statement, Dropbox chief executive Drew Houston said the new software was intended to let users work together on files without having to bounce between multiple windows.
“We’re focused on removing the friction from that experience, pulling everything together in a way that nobody has done before," Houston said in the statement.
Started as a free service to consumers, Dropbox now offers a range of enterprise software services and competes with companies such as Google and Microsoft.
Last month, the company raised its full-year revenue outlook and reported better-than-expected results after adding more paying subscribers.
Between 2017 and 2018, the company went from 11 million paying users to 12.7 million, with revenue growing from US$1.1 billion to US$1.4 billion over the same time.
