Dropbox is attempting to expand from file- sharing and syncing into the much bigger marketplace of cloud-established cooperation. The firm is focusing on adding attributes that let workers work collectively, create, chat and remark, setting Dropbox into rivalry with a bigger group of businesses, from present competitions Google and Microsoft to newer challengers like Atlassian and Slack.

“We’re beginning to layer on communicating on top of files.”

New communicating characteristics will comprise one which lets users remark on it and emphasize a piece of text or picture in a file. The firm also previewed a tool for adding a string of real time opinions on top of a file, so several people can hold working discussions. The firm declined to give details about the attributes that were previewed will appear in the products.

Another tool that is future have viewed it lately or will tell users which coworkers are also looking at a file – a Dropbox function that operates with Microsoft Office files but the firm needs to bring it to programs and many other file types, Jackson said. Several of the new attributes rely on a partnership between Microsoft and Dropbox, which is also one of the largest competitors of Dropbox.

“We need to choose the tools which people understand and love like Microsoft Office and make them more collaborative,” Jackson said. “We are working with them extremely closely, and to their credit they have been very open. They, like us, need to adopt the tools folks are using.”

It is attempting to cut costs and concentrate on bringing more business customers with security characteristics and added productivity.

At the Bloomberg Technology Discussion, Chief Executive Officer Drew Houston said Dropbox is not lucrative but is free cash flow positive, a landmark Jackson credited to greater discipline and sales increase on prices.

Jackson said Dropbox needs to address the more comprehensive – and competitive – marketplace for Internet and cloud cooperation services -based software, which he sees as more like tens of billions in sales per annum.

Dropbox additionally intends to revamp its products to give information technology administrators greater control and added security alternatives, part of its attempt to entice more corporate customers after this year, Jackson said.