Dropbox has a new feature it hopes will make getting work done from within its cloud storage product even easier. Called Extensions, these third-party  software plug-ins will let you perform basic tasks you’d normally need to launch a separate app or in-browser window for all within Dropbox on the web.

Dropbox’s first suite of extensions with partners like Adobe, DocuSign, and Vimeo will let you get the required digital signatures on a PDF perform some light photo editing and annotating of videos, all without leaving Dropbox in a workflow that immediately saves new flies to the cloud. the Extensions launches for all users including non business users of Dropbox NOVEMBER 27th.

The goal is to cutdown on the amount of apps a user has to open and use in order to get a basic task done, like getting a signature on a PDF the would normally require you to use an app like Docusign. Increasingly the value of dropbox tries to off its business customers its not just cloud storage, but also productivity gains you might get from traditional enterprise products. The Extensions feature can be found by using an “open with” drop-down menu, just like you’d find on macOS or Windows.

In the past Dropbox has tried to make its own custom software products successful for productivity like the now- shutdown Damian app mailbox and the photo app Carousel or the currently active Google Docs-style writing and editing tool paper. 

instead of developing more of these products itself, Dropbox is partnering with other companies  as it has with big firms like Google and Microsoft to bring apps it knows business users rely on every day into the Dropbox ecosystem. Effectively, Dropbox wants to become a nexus for all sorts of different apps and services that all revolve around file management. And features like Extensions go a long way in helping the company get there