Box.net

The popular online file sharing service DropBox finally launches a version for business - DropBox for Teams. It differs from the regular DropBox by two things. First, it has an administrative panel to manage users and access rights. In the admin panel you can also pay for all business users. Second, when sharing files inside DropBox for Teams account, the free disk space is not decreased. (In the regular DropBox version if somebody shares for example 100 MB file to you, your disk space is reduced by 100 MB). However, DropBox wants business version users not to think about the free space at all. DropBox for Teams provides at least 1TB of free space. This is 2 times bigger than in the business version of the main competitor - Box.net

A couple of years ago it was funny to watch the cheeky advertising by Box.net, in which the startup attacked the giant SharePoint. But it turned out that Box.net can not only do a noisy PR, but also can effectively run its business and develop the high-quality product. This week the company raised another $81 million of investments from SAP and Salesforce, and its market value was estimated at $600 million. Box.net currently has 100 thousand customers (7 million users). 77% of Fortune 500 companies use Box.net. And this summer the startup succeeded in signing its biggest contract - with Procter & Gamble for 18,000 seats. Box.net is the mobile collaboration market leader according to Forrester. So what is the secret of their success?

Box.net CEO, Aaron Levy, came up with a new beautiful term "Smart Enterprise". Aaron opposes it Benioff's "Social Enterprise", hinting that a company (and business applications) in result should smart rather than social. And the main goal of business application is not to connect person to person but to connect person to needed content. So in general, all this stuff is quite abstract and unclear, but it sounds good and perfectly fits into Box.net mission - to provide a single, centralized cloud content repository for Enterprise. Box.net wants to integrate content from all (isolated) business applications, computers, mobile devices, offices to ensure that each employee can access the right content at the right time. To achieve this, Box.net has released two major components: Box for Microsoft Office and Box Sync.

Forrester Research, the technology and market research company decided to create a report on the mobile collaboration market. Why mobile? After all, there are no purely mobile collaborative solutions. Mobile access - is just a feature in such systems. But apparently, this feature has become so important that it deserves a separate report. So the results of Forrester research - on the chart. The results - are quite strange. For example, Google (which provides the cool mobile access to almost all their services) is behind the most leaders. And Microsoft - is absent (while it's new department Skype has the best mobile strategy). But the chart leader - Box.net is really showing the great progress in recent months.

Next week Microsoft will officially launch its online office suite Office 365, and of course, the major competitors, Google and Box.net, want to spoil this party. First, they have integrated their solutions. Now Box.net users can edit any stored document in the Google Docs online editors. In addition, they can (in just one click) create new documents in Box.net folders by opening Google Docs apps. Recall that Box.net also features the similar integration with Zoho Docs, so now users will have a choice. Box.net CEO, Aaron Levy, says that he played with the beta version of Office 365 and that it’s lacking the power and functionality of the bunch Box + Google Docs.

Last week, Amazon launched the new online file storage service Amazon Cloud Drive. And taking into account reputation of Amazon, as the online storage market leader, this event, of course, deserves our attention. Let's consider the advantages and disadvantages of this service compared to key competitors. The main parameters - are shown in the table (below). It's turns out that the main advantage of Amazon Cloud Drive - if free 5GB account  with maximum file size of 2GB. However, its main drawback negates this advantage: you can not share this large file with anyone. Amazon Cloud Drive doesn't allow to share files publicly or protected by password. I.e. the only way of using this service - is a private storage for backup or enhancing your productivity.

As known, Box.net always positioned itself as a Sharepoint alternative. The entire marketing strategy of Box.net has been built on Sharepoint criticism. They created billboards criticizing Sharepoint, distributed T-shirts with the sign "No Sharepoint", collected negative reviews about Sharepoint in Twitter, etc. But business - is business. And Sharepoint - is Sharepoint. This is perhaps the most successful IT system over the last several years. And it's linked to so many others business applications that persuading a company to change Sharepoint to something else - is unreal. So Box.net accepted this fact and came up with the new strategy: now Box.net will be the front-end to Sharepoint. And also to others ECM systems.

Business applications should be simple - this is the favorite phrase of Aaron Levy, the founder of collaboration service Box.net. And the main feature of the new Box.net version is again more simple and intuitive interface. It was very simple before also, but Box.net developers continue to redraw and rearrange buttons, icons, menus to make the users even more happy. The new interface is implemented on HTML5 and it allows to open and view files online faster. Also, there are new convenient tools like instant pop-up notifications (imitating Windows tray notifications) and drag and drop support for moving files between folders. In addition, now it's possible to attach discussions not only to files but also to folders. It's useful for discussing projects.

Recently we have taken a look at what stage is the introduction of Enterprise 2.0 technologies in the ECM systems. What will these systems look like in the future? Perhaps they will look like Box.net. At least, Aaron Levy, the founder of Box.net believes it's true. He even invented the term "Cloud Content Management" as an alternative to Enterprise Content Management. While this term is mainly for marketing purposes, however, some Box.net ideas really can become the basis of ECM 2.0. The main promise of ECM is creating a unified information space in enterprise. ECM is intended provide user a unified access to all data, regardless of in what repositories/applications this data is stored. But what if a company uses one or more SaaS-applications from different providers?

A few years ago (like many startupers now) Aaron Levie, Box.net founder, was making a choice - what service to create. Now he tells why he had chosen the business application. Of course, every entrepreneur wants to create something cool and sexy, something that people will like - he says. And it's usually associated with such projects as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. But Aaron is sure that it's time for business apps to become "sexy." For many years, enterprise IT systems looked just as sexy, as Steve Ballmer in bikini. Due to the lack of competition (when a partner network was the major success factor), they were complicated, awkward and expensive. The emergence of SaaS and Cloud Computing technologies enables young companies relatively easily deliver new business apps. As a result, the market becomes more competitive, and forces IT systems to change.

Just yesterday we talked about Sharepoint Workspace - the tool which allows to sync files between Sharepoint server and user's computer, and today the cloud file collaborative service Box.net (which is positioned as a Sharepoint alternative) released the similar tool Box Sync. This is a program that is installed on your computer and allows you to sync any folder in your online Box.net account with desktop. If you change any file in that folder, it will be immediately synced, and those users who have access to this folder - will receive an alert. For now Box Sync is only available for Windows and only in the paid (business) accounts. Versions for Mac and Linux, as well as the free version will appear later this year.

The leading SaaS and Enterprise 2.0 vendors decided to make their business a little more "WOW". In the new show-channell called "I Choose the Cloud" the founders and executives of cloud companies appeal to join the cloud revolution. Because cloud applications mean not only simplicity, usability, speed and cost efficiency. They also mean the new exciting ways of running business. Because these applications are create not by serious gloomy IT-people in ties, but by such cool guys, who enjoy what they do. Guest stars: Aaron Levie (Box.net), Chuck Dietrich (SlideRocket), David Weekly (PBworks), Eugene Lee (Socialtext), Wendy Lea (Get Satisfaction), Clint Oram (SugarCRM), Tien Tzuo (Zuora), Matt Brezina (Xobni)

Major SaaS vendors are now less interested in providing applications - they want to create web platforms and grab the world (and earn commission on the other developers). Salesforce was the first to play this game, then Google, NetSuite, SugarCRM and others jumped into this wagon. Box.net (that doesn't have such financial strength as the above mentioned companies) invented even more interesting platform strategy. Box.net wants to be present on each popular platform. First, they created the connector for Force.com, then joint the Intuit Partner Program and Google Apps Marketplace, and recently released modules for SuiteCloud and Sugar 6. Thus, they build the cross-platform cloud content management system. This system allows to store all content in a single online repository and access it in different SaaS systems used in the company: CRM, ERP, Collaboration system. Even more interesting is the opportunity to create shared cross-company extranet based on Box.net: for example, the same file may be available from Salesforce account owned by company A and NetSuite account owned by company B.

So, iPad is now available in US and like Avatar is breaking all records (already about 400 thousand devices are sold). The first users have already downloaded several millions iPad applications, but most of them are consumer apps, rather than business applications. As we noted earlier, iPad has a little chance to become a revolutionary business tool. And not just because of the lack of webcam, multitasking, Flash support and security measures. Despite its originality, iPad will compete in the corporate market with an army of netbooks and smartphones (including iPhone). But certainly iPad will be useful for business of software vendors, which have already begun to announce iPad clients to get the customer attention.

Perhaps, the Box.net owners were not very happy to know that Google Docs became an online file storage service, and thus, their rival. But their answer was not long in coming. Recently Box.net introduced universal Flash-based file viewer, which allows you to view almost any file stored in Box.net account online, without downloading it to your computer. This may be an office document, picture, flash, audio or video (over 20 file types). In addition, you can publish any file (in the flash-viewer) on your website or share it with certain employees or clients, so that they could view it and leave their comments. Perhaps it's the perfect solution when you want to send a presentation, technical documentation or design temlate to your customer. You don't need to worry that the client has specific software installed to open the file.

Recently we wrote about to leading file collaboration services - DropBox and Box.net. Now it's time to add to this short list one more tool - SugarSync. During the last few months this service added some very important features: good version control system, free 2Gb subscription plan, iPhone and Android apps and the suitable file sending feature. And yesterday they unveiled business accounts that enable to administrate up to 100 user accounts - the feature that is much expected from DropBox. Besides the ability to create/delete user accounts, administrator can set storage limits for each user (and receive alerts when user is near limit) and easily scale the whole company storage volume. And of course, all payments are centralized.

Box.net CEO, Aaron Levie, says that there are a lot of good SaaS business apps on the Web and most of them include (or should include) file collaboration capabilities. But in the world of bestsourcing it would be great for all if these business apps would focus on their specific functions and Box.net would provide the powerful file collaboration layer for them. In other words, Box.net wants to be the same for Internet, as Sharepoint for Intranet. And they decided to start this mission from the leading SaaS player - Salesforce. The other day, Box.net developed the connector, that allows Salesforce users to add Box.net to their accounts and use all Box.net file management tools right from the online CRM system.

DropBox and Box.net - are, probably, the most popular and successful online file sharing and collaboration services. And though they use two different approaches to the SaaS file storage, they both have alike strategy, supposing constant upgrades and new features development. During the recent months both services did a good job and it's interesting to compare their results.

Box.net has partnered with Fuze Meeting to add real-time online meetings and screen sharing to its online office suite. Using Fuze as part of your Box account will allow you to conduct meetings, share your desktop (which requires a download), and upload your Box files to a Fuze collaboration space. Box has added the Fuze Meeting support as part of its OpenBox system, which allows users to share their files with a plethora of services. Everything from Gmail to Zoho and beyond can be connected to a Box account, so this is really just another addition to the ecosystem for Box. But Fuze is competing against some extremely entrenched services, namely WebEx and GoToMeeting. To draw in Box account holders, an enterprise user base that is naturally more open to new SaaS tools, might be a big boost in its quest to gain market share.