IDG News Service - Box.net bumped up security and synchronization on its content management and sharing platform and teamed up with Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Mobility for pre-installation deals at its BoxWorks user conference in San Francisco.
Motorola Xoom tablets and all Hewlett-Packard small-business PCs will come with Box.net software pre-installed, the companies announced on Wednesday. In addition, Box.net will work with the Salesforce Chatter enterprise social-networking platform, as Box.net tries to position its service and software as the prime platform for sharing and collaborating on enterprise files.
The company announced an update to its Box Sync feature, which lets users share files across multiple devices, and said it would become available for Macs for the first time. It also announced Trusted Access, a feature that lets users and managers see which of their devices were used to access their account, and the capability to set sharing permissions across an enterprise for different sets of data.
But partnerships were a major part of the day's news, including deals with MobileIron and Good Technology for using those companies' mobile management tools to manage Box.net, and with Okta to tie into that company's cloud-based identity management system. Okta allows employees to get into a wide variety of enterprise applications and data stores with one login and password.
Box.net's target is traditional enterprise software that puts data in silos, said CEO Aaron Levie, who peppered his keynote speech with jibes at Microsoft. Traditional IT makes information hard to share, making it harder to get work done, he said.
"Our vision at Box is to change that. The more people that you have, the more data that you have, the more value your organization gets," Levie said.
More than 100,000 businesses, including 77 percent of the Fortune 500, use Box.net, Levie said. The company claims more than 7 million users worldwide, including consumers.
Box.net is available as a native application for PCs, Macs and major mobile platforms, as well as a browser-based tool built with HTML5.
Under the new deal with Motorola, the Android version of Box.net will be available on all Xoom tablets worldwide.
HP plans to start by including Box.net on all its desktop PCs for small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. and is interested in expanding the offer in other parts of the world, said Kathy Chou, vice president of HP's Personal Systems Group Americas.
Chou sounded notably optimistic about the partnership, given that just last month, HP said it was studying the possibility of spinning off or selling its PC division.
"Hopefully, this will be a key point in both our companies' histories in years to come," Chou said.
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