If you use an iPad or an iPhone, the apps are great but the data always feels like it’s in silos. Transferring and accessing data from one app to another isn’t as smooth as it should be. Box is introducing its OneCloud mobile cloud to help businesses and users solve that problem.
Box provides online storage and collaboration tools and unlike competitors Dropbox and SugarSync, Box focuses on the enterprise by offering more IT-friendly functionality. OneCloud will likely be well-received by businesses because it allows iOS users to work with data within apps and have it automatically saved back to that Box account.
There are over 30 OneCloud apps but four premiere partners which will really take advantage of this roundtrip workflow: Quickoffice, Adobe EchoSign, Nuance PaperPort Notes and PDF Expert. One example of this usefulness is being able to use your iPad to access Box, open a document, edit it in Quickoffice and have it automatically save it back to that Box file. It’s something that may seem simple but took a lot of work and it will greatly add to the productivity workflow, I believe.
“Today there are thousands of mobile applications storing data in a variety of information silos, stalling business processes and efficiencies,” said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, in a prepared statement. “Box OneCloud unifies your business applications across devices to power enterprise productivity in the post-PC era. We’re fueling the engine of mobile innovation, making enterprise workers more informed, agile and productive.”
This is a great step for Box and enterprise users but don’t expect it to stop here, as we can expect the OneCloud to land on Android soon enough. I wondered if maybe Box should build in some of these features (document editing, PDF annotation, etc.) into its own apps to save the users hassles and it said that it will add the features that makes sense and leverage its developer base for others.
