Microsoft has struck a new deal with a major competitor, teaming up with Dropbox to boost interoperability between Office and Dropbox's cloud storage and file sharing services.

As a reminder, Microsoft's OneDrive and OneDrive for Businesses were in direct competition with Dropbox and Dropbox for Business. This new agreement turns that competition into a fruitful collaboration that stands to benefit both consumers and businesses.

Announced on Tuesday, Nov. 4, this strategic partnership between Microsoft and Dropbox aims to help people work more effectively, as the two companies will integrate their services for collaboration across Dropbox and Microsoft Office on phones, tablets, as well as the Web.

Data and mobile usage is rapidly growing worldwide, with millions of people relying on Dropbox and Office to handle their files at any time, from anywhere. According to Microsoft, more than 1.2 billion people use Office, and Dropbox houses more than 35 billion Office files.

"In our mobile-first and cloud-first world, people need easier ways to create, share and collaborate regardless of their device or platform," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a press release. "Together, Microsoft and Dropbox will provide our shared customers with flexible tools that put them at the center for the way they live and work today."

"People around the world have embraced Office and Dropbox to empower the way they live and work today," added Drew Houston, CEO and co-founder of Dropbox. "Our partnership with Microsoft will make it easier than ever to collaborate seamlessly across these platforms, giving people the freedom to get more done."

Because not all Office users rely on Microsoft's OneDrive and OneDrive for Business to store and manage their files, this collaboration with Dropbox aims to make things easier for customers. Dropbox has an impressive user base of roughly 300 million users, while Office has 1.2 billion users. By joining forces, the two companies can now better serve their customers and make everything more convenient.

This is not the first intriguing partnership Microsoft strikes with a major competitor. Back in May, the company signed a deal with Salesforce.com, and in October it entered a cloud computing agreement with IBM. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that his company will continue to seek partnership opportunities with competitors if the deals bring significant benefits to customers by improving the way key Microsoft products work with third parties.

The new partnership with Dropbox will focus specifically on Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, by allowing users to access Dropbox from within the Office interface. Moreover, users will also be able to access Office files from the Dropbox interface, as well as sync any changes among devices.

These new interoperability features will roll out in the coming weeks via the next updates to Office apps for iOS and Android, and will hit the Web version of Dropbox and Office Online in the first half of next year. Under the new deal, Dropbox will also develop a mobile app for Windows platforms in the coming months.

The new features will be available to all Office users with a Dropbox account, while Dropbox for Business users will need an Office 365 subscription.