M+E Connections

Box Platform Enhancements Include Support for VR, HD Video Files

Box introduced several enhancements to its Box Platform, including support for virtual reality (VR) files, high-def video and 360-degree images and video, at its BoxWorks conference in San Francisco Sept. 8.

CEO Aaron Levie discussed those enhancements, as well as new partnerships with companies including Google, and also gave a bright forecast for his company’s future during a Box Financial Analyst Day presentation.

Box executives are “very happy” about the company’s core platform, he said. But “we’re just getting started,” he said, adding: “As we look forward, we see a tremendous amount of change happening” within the organizations of Box customers and the company can’t just rely on being a “first mover” in the enterprise content management sector. It is, however, taking advantage of what it’s learned from customers by being a first mover to prepare for the future, he said.

“We see a massive landscape of technology which fundamentally needs to be disrupted” by companies that are both existing and potential customers, he went on to say. The collaboration, content management and data storage systems that many companies are using “make no sense” anymore, he said. “Obsolete” systems are making it hard for, among other things, cooperation between users of mobile devices; the sharing of files, especially outside of an individual enterprise; and apps to communicate with other apps, he said. As a result, “fragmentation” and “sprawl” are rampant in the enterprise sector, he told attendees.

Levie predicted that the traditional storage market that includes legacy offerings by Dell and other companies is “going to go away.” He added: “We don’t believe that in five or 10 years from now an enterprise is going to have sort of mixed platforms where some stuff is in their data center and some stuff is in the cloud.” That’s because “it’s not going to make sense to have another environment for your legacy storage” anymore outside of the one managed by a platform like Box’s, he said.

Box now has more than 66,000 customers, 60% of which are Fortune 500 companies, he said, adding General Electric is an example of a customer that’s “fully standardized” on the Box platform across its entire business. Other customers include LinkedIn, Uber and Walmart, he said.

The announced support for new file types builds on Box’s existing preview capabilities that allow developers to embed interactive viewers of files in their web and mobile applications, the company said in a news release. The new VR, HD video, 360 and 3D model file types were made available already for web applications using a JavaScript software development kit and will be available for mobile in the coming months, it said.

Box also introduced new capabilities in the embedded preview of a file that allow end users to add annotations and developers to display a watermark on files that contain sensitive information. Annotations, made available already in JavaScript and in the coming months for iOS and Android, enable end users to add point comments and highlight text directly on an embedded file preview, Box said. Watermarking, available already via the Box application programming interface (API), will display the user’s email address and access time on the file preview, it said. There are now more than 80,000 developers building applications and integrations with Box Platform, it said.

Box also announced expanded support for its developer ecosystem, including new and improved developer tools and a new incubator program in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS). To support the development of new, cloud-based enterprise apps, the Box Platform Incubator will offer free services from Box, while AWS will offer free usage credits that can be applied to select AWS services, along with Box-led marketing opportunities and mentorship from Box and AWS experts, Box said. Companies interested in applying for the program will be able to apply starting Oct. 1, it said.

As announced earlier in the week, Box and Google will collaborate on several initiatives to transform work in the cloud, including new integrations between Box, Google Docs and Google Springboard, to deliver what Box said will be a “seamless experience for working and collaborating on content in the cloud.”

Box and IBM already teamed up in June 2015 as part of an effort to deliver new capabilities and new solutions to market globally by combining Box’s content management and collaboration platform with the global footprint of the IBM Cloud. Developed on Bluemix, IBM’s Cloud platform, the new Box Relay workflow solution that the companies announced at BoxWorks will help make it “easier for people working in every industry and job function to be more productive, whether the goal is to automate employee onboarding and training, streamline the budget process, or approve assets and contracts,” the companies said in a joint news release.