Box acquires Folders technology to enrich iOS offering
Box indicated on its blog Thursday that the cloud-storage company has “acquired the technology” for the Folders iOS app enabling users to open many kinds of files on the iPhone. The deal marks Box's third acquisition, closely following on news of the Crocodoc deal.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second tuck-in in a matter of days: the Folders technology purchase lands shortly after Box's Crocodoc acquisition, which brought document rendering into the fold, and marks Box's third acquisition overall per the company's own announcement. Both deals point the same direction — making files viewable natively rather than shipping users off to other apps.
It also extends an arc that started with the Box OneCloud launch in March 2012, where Box positioned its mobile app as a hub over thirty-plus partner applications. Folders' technology for opening many file types on the iPhone suggests Box is pulling that viewing capability in-house instead.
First-order effects
- Box's iOS app gains built-in technology for opening many kinds of files directly on the iPhone, reducing its dependence on third-party viewer apps from the OneCloud ecosystem it launched in 2012.
Second-order effects
- Rival cloud-storage vendors now face a rising baseline expectation that their own mobile apps render common file formats natively, pushing similar small technology acquisitions or in-house engineering onto their roadmaps.
Third-order effects
- If Box keeps assembling viewing and rendering technology piece by piece — Crocodoc for documents, Folders for broad file-type support on mobile — the pattern points toward cloud-storage competition being decided by in-app experience rather than raw storage capacity.
The trend: Enterprise cloud storage is shifting from selling capacity to owning the entire mobile file-viewing experience, assembled through rapid-fire capability acquisitions.