Box.net start screen (iPad) (Photo credit: Rob Enslin)
Box has just announced a series of updates that revolve around providing a more ‘social’ experience to its users.
These updates are clearly aimed at gaining more enterprise customers for Box by enabling more interaction and engagement and making it easier for sharing and collaboration. However, many enterprise customers will value utility over the ‘Facebookisation’ of Box. This is where the new enhanced search functionality, and the ability to edit documents from within the application are potential game-changers. Below is a video detailing these changes.
On the whole, Box needs to maintain a fine balance – by incorporating a much-needed social fabric (and the ensuing chaos, privacy concerns, information overload), it risks loosing its key differentiation factor with its main competition Dropbox – of being a no-nonsense, secure, enterprise oriented service.
