Below is my review of the announcements (or lack of) at Box's BoxWorks 2015 conference. Quick summary:
Box solidifies their strategy to be a content services platform for applications. Over the last few years they have invested heavy in their infrastructure and architecture and that work is now paying off. Box made several announcements that improve security, deployment and management including:
- Compliance/Governance: Legal Holds
- IRM: Device Trust / Watermarking
- EKM: Amazon Web Services Key Management Service
- Choose your network connection (AT&T, NTT)
- Store data with other providers (IBM SoftLayer in 2016)
Unfortunately there was not a lot of news on the user experience side of Box, meaning the way people create, discover, share and collaborate on content. There were a few bright spots such as the introduction of a new application called Box Capture which allows mobile phone users to take a picture and store it directly in Box, and enhancements in their viewer technology to enable high definition video, 3D interactive objects (such as CAD drawings) and medical imagine manipulation. However, there were not a lot of updates in core functionality that people use everyday such as
- Discovery of content and people (experts, networks)
- Collaboration and sharing of content
- Creating content and task management
In the video below I discuss these items in more detail.