Microsoft adds iCloud support to Office for iOS

Microsoft added iCloud support to Office for iOS on Tuesday. With this, users of the mobile office apps can now open, edit and save documents in Apple’s online storage service. Earlier, Microsoft already added Dropbox support.

Thanks to the updates, iPhone and iPad users can now select and open files in iCloud with, for example, Word, Excel or Powerpoint. This means that they are not obliged to use Microsoft’s competing service OneDrive. In addition, Microsoft says iCloud support will also be rolled out to Windows 10 and to the Office for Android apps.

Microsoft further reported Monday that it will allow third-party companies to integrate Office Online into their cloud services. This means that Office documents can be opened and edited in those applications. Services such as Box, Citrix and Salesforce are already working on such possibilities, according to Microsoft.

iCloud support follows after Microsoft made it clear at the end of last year that it would integrate Dropbox into Office, in addition to its own OneDrive service. In return, Dropbox said it would integrate Office into its mobile apps. This collaboration was immediately noticeable, because Microsoft and Dropbox are competitors in the field of file storage.