Box looks to reimagine content sharing with Box Platform, exclusive iOS apps
Speaking at Tuesday morning's keynote, following a chat with Tim Cook about Apple and the enterprise, Box CEO Aaron Levie reiterated his company's focus on building transformative enterprise software that reimagines how employees store and share content in the cloud.
The vision was laid out through a series of new product announcements -- the first of many over the next few days, Levie promised -- all aimed at putting content front and center of the enterprise universe.
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The products include support for new kinds of content like HD video; expanded integrations for content collaboration; a new mobile app called Box Capture for connecting content in the field; as well as the new Developer and Enterprise editions of The Box Platform for building enterprise apps.
In terms of expanded content types, Box is rolling out a series of new viewers. This includes an interactive 3D viewer, where users can share a range of content like design documents, and an HD viewer for users in the film and entertainment industry.
Box also introduced a DICOM viewer for customers in the healthcare industry. The DICOM is notable in that it allows medical workers to share, share and collaborate around medical images -- something we'll see a lot more of as healthcare inches further into digital realm.
Another big reveal during the keynote was Box's iOS-only Capture app. Built using the Box mobile SDK, Capture essentially connects a user's camera directly to the Box platform. Capture highlights metadata like when and where the photo was taken, and then other team members can discuss captured photos and videos in real time.
The business case for Capture is that field workers -- in construction, emergency response or insurance, for example -- can take photos and then share them with the rest of their team. Capture is Box's first mobile-only app for the enterprise, the company said.
Finally, Box is bundling all of these services in the new Box Platform, which was introduced on the BoxWorks stage by Jeetu Patel, who left EMC to join Box several months ago. According to Patel, the goal is to make the Box Platform the center of content services much like the way PayPal's Stripe is the center of payment services.
"We've spent last ten years building technology that powers enterprise content management and collaboration for more than 50% of the Fortune 500. With the Box Platform, we're giving you those same capabilities -- so you don't have to build it yourself -- making it ridiculously easy for businesses and partners to build amazing apps for their respective ecosystems," Patel wrote in a blog post.
When developers build and deploy an app on the Box Platform, Box is completely invisible to the users of the app, Patel added. The platform will be generally available next month.