Review Of Box.net Online Collaboration Tool
Overview and History - Since 2005, founders Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith as well as
their fast-growing team have established Box.net as one of the most fashionable and trusted web-based services for accessing and collaborating content from anywhere. Right now, in excess of 2,000,000 individuals, small businesses, and large companies from all over the world use Box.Net to easily unite with the information and staff that matter most. Box.net is based in Palo Alto, California.Security Options - Box.Net provides 256bit encryption for information during transfer up and down to it's data centers. They host their servers at 2 enterprise-grade data centers with current audits, 24 hour monitoring and recording surveillance, on-site security staff, and demanding admittance controls. All power & environmental controls are in an N+1 redundant configuration to ensure fault tolerance. Many power feeds, UPS devices, and onsite emergency generators assure sustained performance and stalwart infrastructure. Information is automatically backed up to a geographically separate location. This ensures that they always have duplicate copies of your data.
Backup Options - Box.net is not a backup solution, nonetheless, you can maintain five different versions of files if you have the Individual account or ten versions if you have the business account.
Restore Options - Apart from the file versioning mentioned above, there is no restore functionality.
Control and Analysis - This is a web-based service with no software to install on client devices, therefore CPU and bandwidth throttling don't apply.
Logging and Reporting are accessible but exclusively in the Enterprise edition.
Interface - The interface is really polished and offers painless uploading and distribution of files and folders via the web portal. The Business and Enterprise editions provide an Admin Portal and the functionality to manage multiple accounts.
Device Support - If your device can get to online, then you can use Box.Net.
Limitations
- The Lite and Individual editions cannot be used commercially.
- The Lite version has an individual file size limit of 25mb while the rest of the editions have a 1 Gigabyte file size limit.
- There is however, no limit on how much you can upload or download.
- File retention for deleted files is 30 days which is the industry standard.
File Sharing and Collaboration - In all editions, you can invite others to share via email and you can import your email addresses via comma-delimited files or directly if you have an Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail Account.
- Uploaded files can be saved in folders or directly in your home page. Once you have a folder you can:
- Request collaborators to share the files in the folder.
- Link to the folder
- Share the folder
- Embed the folder in a website
- Add comments and tags
- Enter a description for the folder
- Monitor activity in this folder via email notifications
- Set the access level for the folder:
- Private, Collaboration, or Global
- If sharing globally, you can assign a Vanity name to the folder
- One further nifty attribute is the ability to set an expiration date on the folder share.
Synchronization - There is no file or folder synchronization.
Web 2.0 Integration - This is where Box.net shines most brightly! Box.net uses the OpenBox standard which means it is directly compatible with an ever growing group of Web 2.0 applications. Everything from iPhone apps to Online Office apps suchas Zoho and EditGrid to eFaxing via eFax to managing CRM with SalesForce and all your preferred Social Networking sites. You can even add Google Analytics to your account so you can find out how people are accessing your files.
Customer Support
- Phone support is available but not on a toll-free number and only in business hours.
- Email Support is accessable via a webform on the contact page.
- Non-interactive support is good: There is a fairly detailed FAQ section; a Knowledgebase; a forum and a blog. A demo and case studies are also provided.
- A free trial is available for the Business edition.
- We found the support staff to be friendly, well informed and keen to help in any way they could.
Learning curve - Box.Net is so very quickly. Once you have uploaded or created some content then you really start to see how easy it is to use. Collaboration is really easy and it becomes a so simple to work online with others when you have a easy to use, streamlined and clear environment to work in.
Cost
Box.Net offers 4 packages as shown below:
- Lite: no charge
- Individual - $9.99 / month
- Business - $15 / month
- Enterprise - Price on application
Initial setup on all packages is free
There are no options for added storage.
There are no limits to the amount of devices that can be used with the service
Initial allowed storage allowance
- Lite: 1Gb
- Individual: 5Gb
- Business: 10Gb / person
- Enterprise: infinite
Conclusion - If you are hunting for an online backup solution then this is NOT the service for you. If you are hunting for a very intuitive,simple and simple to manage web-based collaboration product then congratulations, you've found it. The functionality to creaet email notifications when files are updated or added in one of your project folders is a particularly useful idea.
Box.Net is the best online collaboration tool we have reviewed to date.
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