Box to integrate with Microsoft Office for iPad, iPhone and Office Online

New integrations will boost efficiency of businesses, claims Box CEO Aaron Levie

Cloud storage vendor Box will now support native integrations of Microsoft Office for iPad and iPhone, as well as Office Online.

Box already offers integration with Office 365 on the desktop, and Outlook for iPhone and iPad.

In a blog post, Box CEO Aaron Levie acknowledged that "Box is not the only place work will get done" and claimed that this was why the company "supported the widest number of experiences possible".

One of those experiences, he said, will be its integration with Microsoft Office. The new integrations, which will be available at no additional cost to existing Box users, will allow businesses to edit and save documents in Box directly from Office. Levie believes this will make businesses more efficient.

The Box CEO praised Microsoft's recent efforts to become more open.

"While new integrations are built for the Box platform on a daily basis - there are billions of Box API calls every month - Microsoft has made huge mobile and cross-platform strides, boldly taking an open path for Office 365," he said.

"Customers and the industry are going to benefit tremendously because of this direction," he added.

Levie also announced that Box had joined the likes of Salesforce and Citrix as a member of the Microsoft Cloud Storage Partner Programme.

The Los Altos, California-based company is looking to add new features to its offering after finally giving the green light to its Initial Public Offering (IPO) last month.

Box's share price climbed to a high of $23.73 per share on its first day of trading –up from the $14 offering price – but Wall Street is not yet convinced that the firm has enough resources to compete with big name companies such as Google and Microsoft, despite offering services that differentiate it from the consumer-focused privately owned Dropbox.