Dropbox beefs up channel as it talks up Microsoft co-opetition

File-sharing firm has 400 partners in the UK

Dropbox has pledged its commitment to the channel, citing its recent tie-up with Ingram Micro as a key driver for it recruiting 400 partners in the UK, and 2,200 across Europe.

The US firm, which launched into the business space two years ago after enjoying initial success in the consumer space, linked up with Ingram Micro's Cloud Marketplace in April, and credits this as one of the main reasons it has recruited so many partners.

The company's head of channels for EMEA, Simon Aldous, told CRN that the company does not break out the percentage of its business which goes through the channel, but said that working with disties and resellers is extremely important.

"We're part of a solution so we need to be working with the people delivering those solutions - it absolutely makes sense," he said. "Channel for us is a very, very serious part of how we are going to scale".

At the moment, there are 14 channel-focused Dropbox staff across EMEA, including four in the UK. Although Dropbox Business competes with Microsoft OneDrive for Business, Aldous said that the companies engage in coopetition.

"We've got a strategic relationship with Microsoft where if you look at our messaging around it, Office 365 and Dropbox are better together," he said. "We inherently integrate with Office 365.

"If you look at the volume of files which move through Dropbox on a daily basis, by a long way the majority are Microsoft files. Lots of our existing customers are using us to share Microsoft files anyway.

"There is competition because of OneDrive for Business. Some instances, OneDrive for Business delivers what a customer wants, but in many instances - because of internal and external sharing - Dropbox for Business gives a far more functional solution."

Until Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella (pictured) took the helm in 2014, Microsoft had been less inclined to work with other vendors on a so-called coopetition basis. But under Nadella's rule, strategic tie-ups with traditional competitors Apple and Salesforce have come about.

Aldous - who worked at Microsoft for seven years until 2013 - said that Dropbox has been a beneficiary of this this attitude.

"One of the very interesting things that happened when Satya took over at Microsoft was that he had a very different messaging to Steve Ballmer," he said. "Their view is that they want their technology to be deployed by every business, but they recognise that in other areas there are other complementary technologies that people want to use. That's a very different message. Of course, our 'better together' story is very much in line with that. We were at WPC which shows we very much see ourselves as part of the Microsoft ecosystem."

Clive Longbottom, co-founder of analyst Quocirca, said there is a big opportunity for Dropbox partners to cash in on the duo's partnership.

"The trouble is that OneDrive is pathetic, particularly if you want to use it for business. It has very little true functionality. It's a case of ‘well what else do we choose?'."

"Microsoft has definitely got the creation side of the business - Microsoft Office is king there, no matter how many people come out of their ivory towers and say LibreOffice and Google Docs and all the rest of it [are better]," he said. "Most PCs run Microsoft. The trouble is that OneDrive is pathetic, particularly if you want to use it for business. It has very little true functionality. It's a case of ‘well what else do we choose?'.

"If you're going to make a pure business decision then you can go for something like Huddle or any of the enterprise solutions. But you'll find all of your employees are using Dropbox or Box, because, hey, they're free. Our view has always been, how on earth can you make Dropbox work for you as a business? If you have 200 people, you don't want 200 silos of information to analyse. By working with Microsoft, Microsoft gets a get out of jail free card because it doesn't have to put too much effort into OneDrive. It can say ‘ok, we know Dropbox does a somewhat better job'. Dropbox has got to do more to be able to identify those users who have a personal account and are using it for business. That is a very tough one to do.

"This is where partners can come in and say ‘this is where we can sort all of this out'. They can actually go round those 200 employees and ask if they have a Dropbox account, and when they say yes, they can move them through into the business accounts."