What you can do with Box

Before we jump into the Box, I'd like to look at the Box itself from the outside, and talk a little bit about what you can do with Box, so you know what the capabilities are. This is, then, a 50,000-foot view of box. And I think about Box in three different ways. First, what is it that I can do with box? What can individual do? Well, you can store your files online very, very securely. When I talk with business people about being able to store files online, in the cloud, one of the first things they ask is, but will my files be okay? As of the time I'm recording this course, 92% of the Fortune 500 companies are using Box.

That provides significant testimony about how secure those files are going to be. And the reason that I want to put them there, well, one is maybe I'm using a, a smaller device. I'm using a Microsoft Surface, I'm using any kind of Windows 8 tablet, or I'm using an iPad, and I don't want to fill it up with all kinds of files. But I do want to be able to access them. So, that's one reason that I would store files online with Box. Another is, that I have a multitude of devices and I don't need to have the same files on all of them, because with Box, I can access my files from anywhere.

And anywhere can be an iPad device, it can be a phone, it can be again my Surface, my desktop, it can be a library with a browser while I'm on vacation. If the files I need are in Box, I don't need to take any device with me to be able to access my files, as long as I can get to a browser. Box also allows me to send large files to somebody else. By large, I mean too big for email, but they're not too big for Box. So, I can easily send large files, and this has been an issue in the business community for a while.

I might be able to send a file, but then it's larger than the settings that your email will allow. So, it comes bouncing back or you never get it, and I never know you didn't receive it. Box is made to be able to move large files from one user to another very, very easily, and without taking up any space in your inbox. Unlike some other Cloud storage systems, Box lets me edit my files online. That's right, I don't even need to download them to be able to work on them. And you're going to see the Box editing tools are really world class.

Now, Box is meant for more than just individuals. Box is also meant for teams. So, if you're thinking about how you might use Box with some other people, or a group that you're working with and you're wondering, will Box meet our needs? Whether this is a group of people in your workplace, or a group of people in your volunteer or your social life, you can share files quickly and easily, collaborate on documents, including being able to post comments about documents. And more than this, you can manage some simple work flow because Box allows my team the ability to assign and manage tasks.

So, if I'm using Box as part of a team or Box for Business, I get access to a collaboration platform that's quick and easy to use. Let's go then one step larger. What can a large business do with Box? The business version of Box, Box for Business allows me to set up specialized sites, to set up sales portals, for example, with all of the materials that sales folks would need to have access to. When an organization, small, medium or large, uses Box for Business, they have the ability to transfer files very simply, just like we can with a team.

But, they have some additional ability to manage shared content. We get to collaborate on projects, which is absolutely wonderful. I can have a space where my team can be working on a project. But, I can also have a space where we can have a cross-team project. I can focus really cleanly on customer needs because Box for Business allows me to set up specialized types of spaces. For example, imagine that I'm doing a sale, and we've worked through the proposal and I'm sending information back and forth and options to a client.

I can send those all in email. With Box, I can set up a deal room and we can hang out there until we have closed that deal. And the only people who can be there are people who I designate, including external partners. That's one of the wonderful things about Box for Business, and every version of Box, is that I can share securely and easily with external partners. Now, if I'm working as an individual, everybody's an external partner. But in a business setting, the ability to manage shared content and to securely and easily share that content with specific external partners or specific customers, is absolutely fabulous.

Whether I'm setting up a deal room, whether I'm setting up a sales portal for all of my salespeople to have access to information that they would share, or I'm setting up specific project rooms that include internal and external partners. So, these are some of the things that you can do with Box. Whether you're working as an individual, using Box for a team, or Box for Business.