Box is an online File Sharing

File sharing

File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...

 and Cloud Content Management

Content management

Content management, or CM, is the set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content...

 service for enterprise companies. The company has adopted a freemium

Freemium

Freemium is a business model that works by offering a product or service free of charge while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or related products and services...

 business model, and provides 5GB of free storage for personal accounts. A mobile version of the service is available for Android, iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

, iPad

IPad

The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...

, BlackBerry

BlackBerry

BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...

 and WebOS devices. Box.net's competitors include Dropbox, Huddle

Huddle (software)

Huddle is a web-based team collaboration and project management application developed in the UK.Huddle is privately held and funded by Eden Ventures and Matrix Partners.-Features:...

, FilesAnywhere

Filesanywhere

is the creation of Dallas-based software design and consulting firm, Officeware systems, and is a provider of remote file storage and file sharing for consumers and corporations...

, Egnyte

Egnyte

Egnyte is a computer technology company providing cloud computing infrastructure for online file storage, file sharing and computer backup for small, medium, and large business enterprises....

, TitanFile

TitanFile

TitanFile Inc is a Canadian company headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia. TitanFile is an online secure file sharing and email encryption service...

, Sharepoint and Sugarsync.

History

Box.net was founded in 2005 as a college business project by Aaron Levie (CEO) and Dylan Smith (CFO). It was incorporated in April of that year. Originally based in Mercer Island, Washington

Mercer Island, Washington

Mercer Island is a city in King County, Washington, United States and the name of the island in Lake Washington on which the city sits. The population was 22,699 at the 2010 census....

, Box.net moved to Palo Alto, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, in the summer of 2006.

Box received angel capital from Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban is an American business magnate and investor. He is the owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures, and the chairman of the HDTV cable network HDNet....

 in 2005, then raised a Series A round of $1.5 million from Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California with affiliate offices in more than 30 cities around the world and over $7 billion in capital commitments....

 in 2006. In late 2007, it raised a Series B round of $6 million and then another $7.1 million in 2009 from U.S. Venture Partners

U.S. Venture Partners

U.S. Venture Partners , is a venture capital investment firm headquartered on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley focusing on investments in an array of segments including semiconductors, software as a service, communications, storage, wireless, Internet 2.0, Cleantech, Medical devices and...

 and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, bringing total investment to $14.6 million.

In October 2009, Box.net acquired Increo Solutions, the developer of collaborative online document and media viewing tools Backboard and Embedit.in. As a result of this acquisition, Box.net launched two new features in January 2010: an integrated content viewer and the ability to embed these files anywhere on the web.

In 2011, the company closed a $48 million funding round led by Meritech Capital Partners

Meritech Capital Partners

Meritech Capital Partners is a private equity firm focused on late stage venture capital investments in information technology companies with a focus on consumer Internet and media, software and services, enterprise infrastructure, and medical devices....

, Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz is a venture capital firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company's headquarters is in Menlo Park, California.The venture capital fund was started in June 2009 with an initial capital of $300 million....

, and Emergence Capital Partners. The $48 million included $10 million in debt financing from Hercules Technology Growth Capital. "There was no capital limit and we could've raised more," said Mr. Levie.

API

In December 2007 the company launched its OpenBox platform, which connects content from Box.net with other web-based applications and services. Included in the launch were online services EchoSign

EchoSign

EchoSign is a Web 2.0 electronic signature and enterprise content management system with specific focus on the document management and verification life-cycle. Its major features centre in document signing, tracking and filing. It supports signing by email or by fax.EchoSign maintains a global...

, Autodesk

Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that focuses on 3D design software for use in the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media and entertainment industries. The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a coauthor of the first versions of the company's...

, Zoho, ThinkFree, Scribd

Scribd

Scribd is a Web 2.0 based document-sharing website which allows users to post documents of various formats, and embed them into a web page using its iPaper format. Scribd was founded by Trip Adler, Tikhon Bernstam, and Jared Friedman in 2006...

, Picnik

Picnik

Picnik is an online photo editing service. It is headquartered in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. Currently it can import photos natively from Facebook, Myspace, Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Yahoo Image search, Google Plus and also offers options to upload from a computer or to upload...

, Zazzle

Zazzle

Zazzle is an online retailer that allows users to upload images and create their own merchandise , or buy merchandise created by other users, as well as use images from participating companies...

, Twitter

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 and Myxer

Myxer

Myxer is a Deerfield Beach, Florida-based website that allows users to upload and download a variety of media for cell phones. Users can download for free, with an exception to carrier charges for texts and data .-History:...

. Since then, new OpenBox services have been added from Salesforce, Google Apps, FedEx, Twitter, WatchDox, MindMeister, Fuze Meeting and others. There are now more than 60 OpenBox services available.

With the launch of its OpenBox platform, Box.net added the ability for developers to create services that will interact with a user's files on Box.net. The API

Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

 is implemented over conventional XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

; documentation is available at the OpenBox Developer Documentation Site.

Box.net also launched its OpenBox Mobile developer program in September 2009, enabling developers to make mobile content accessible to other apps and services. iPhone application developers that utilize OpenBox Mobile include iThoughts, iBlueSky, JotNot, iRec, Pixelpipe, Smart Recorder, Readdle and Kinoma.

Products

The core of the service is based around sharing, collaborating, and working with files that are uploaded to Box.net. Box.net offers 3 account types: Enterprise, Business and Personal. Depending on the type of account, Box.net has a number of features such as unlimited storage, custom branding, administrative controls and 3rd party integrations with applications like Google apps, Gmail, NetSuite and Salesforce. The service also has a variety of social features such as discussions, groups and an update feed.

Reception

In 2009, the Company was awarded the Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal's Emerging Tech award in the Cloud Computing category, and has also been named a WebWare 100 Award winner in 2007 and 2008, and one of AlwaysOn's "AO Top Private Companies" for 2007. Co-founders Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith were among the top five finalists in Business Week's "Best Entrepreneurs 25 and Under" rankings for 2009. In 2009, Box.net was nominated "Best Enterprise Start-up" Crunchie In 2010, and was recognized as one of the "Hottest Silicon Valley Companies" by Lead411.

Media Appearances

The company's CEO, Aaron Levie, has had multiple articles featured on the Blog TechCrunch

TechCrunch

TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....

. He is also frequently invited to speak at industry events about Cloud computing and enterprise solutions. The company's CFO, Dylan Smith, was featured on an episode of the reality TV show Millionaire Matchmaker

Millionaire Matchmaker

Millionaire Matchmaker is a television series produced by Bravo and presented by Patti Stanger. Stanger founded the Beverly Hills-based "Millionaire's Club" in 2000 to cater to wealthy men looking for partners...

 in 2010.

See also

• Software as a service
  Software as a Service
  Software as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.SaaS has become a common...
  
  
• Collaborative software
  Collaborative software
  Collaborative software is computer software designed to help people involved in a common task achieve goals...
  
  
• Project management software
  Project management software
  Project management software is a term covering many types of software, including estimation and planning, scheduling, cost control and budget management, resource allocation, collaboration software, communication, quality management and documentation or administration systems, which are used to...
  
  
• Comparison of online backup services
• Comparison of file hosting services
  Comparison of file hosting services
  A comparison of file hosting services.-External links:* List and comparison of file hosting services, online file storage providers, 1-click-hosters and cyberlockers* Big list of file hosting services and online file storage providers....
  
  
• Cloud storage
  Cloud storage
  Cloud storage is a model of networked online storage where data is stored on virtualized pools of storage which are generally hosted by third parties. Hosting companies operate large data centers; and people who require their data to be hosted buy or lease storage capacity from them and use it for...
  
  
• GloboTech Corporation

External links

• Box.net
• Interview with Box.net team and founders video (in French)
• Box.net Tools