Box.net Continues Free Cloud Storage Run With LG Android Deal
The LG Android deal is the next in a line of high-profile free storage promotion Box has offered, including offering 50 GB for free to HP TouchPad buyers and most recently taking a major swipe at Apple iCloud with an offer of 50 GB of free storage for iPhone and iPad users.
Box has been making major waves in the cloud storage, file sharing and content management space in recent months, deflecting massive acquisition attempts -- Citrix reportedly offered to acquire Box for $600 million -- and building out its portfolio through a series of key partnerships and promotions in its battle against iCloud, Dropbox and a host of other once consumer-focused cloud storage plays that have broken through to the enterprise.
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Last month, Box launched the Box Innovation Network, a development platform designed to spur innovation and apps in the Box ecosystem. This comes as box continues to raise massive amounts of cash. Its total funding so far has hit $162 million. And earlier this year, Box launched its first official channel program. A few months later Box added a host of new syncing capabilities to better battle Microsoft in the cloud.
The LG Android promotion gives LG users who download the Box app and sign up for a Box account through their LG Android device free, secure cloud storage and sharing for the lifetime of the device if they sign up between today and March 31, 2012, Box said. The offer is good on LG phones and tablets that run Android OS 2.1 or above.
According to Box, teaming with LG and Android comes as Android devices continue to make a major splash in the marketplace and Android becomes a mobile tour de force.
"Android mobile adoption is growing at an unprecedented rate and by working with LG, we are bringing the full power of the cloud to those users," Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, said in a statement. "To take full advantage of mobile computing, it is essential that users never have to worry about storage limitations, and we believe that LG's efforts combined with the capabilities of Box will be a turning point for both the mobile device and cloud storage categories."
A recent Gartner report indicates that the Android mobile operating system accounted for 52.5 percent of smartphone sales to end users in 2011's third quarter, which was more than double Android's market share from the third quarter the year before. And LG has been a major proponent of Android, launching devices like the Revolution 4G LTE, the Thrill 4G, Marquee and the DoublePlay.
For LG, the Box cloud storage partnership continues LG's push into the enterprise as it bulks up its business-focused mobility solutions and leverages its partner ecosystem to offer mobile device management and security, mobile virtualization, unified communications and cloud computing. Offering free file sharing and cloud storage gives LG the ability to support users' demand for content access from their devices whether for business or pleasure. The app and the 50 GB of free storage gives LG Android users the ability to manage massive amounts of content in the cloud, equivalent to roughly 50,000 docs, photos and presentations, Box said. Additionally, LG Android users can view, upload and share content from anywhere and securely access and share that content across devices and applications.
Along with offering 50 GB of free storage, Box Wednesday also released a new version of Box for Android that adds a host of new features including the ability to download files to the device from Box; offline mode that lets users access those downloaded files from a Box account without a Web connection; a new bulk upload capability to back up or save content from a smartphone or tablet to Box; and an updated user interface that eases navigation and speeds up access to files, Box said.