June 2017 Summaries

Pride@Box is an employee resource group at Box dedicated to supporting LGBTQIA employees and their allies, fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. The group highlights the importance of Pride as both a celebration and a historical protest, emphasizing the ongoing struggles faced by the LGBTQIA community globally. During Pride month, Box organized various events, including a happy hour at their headquarters and a celebration on San Francisco's "Pink Saturday," enabling employees to connect and commemorate the occasion. Additionally, Box employees participated in the AIDS Life Cycle, a 7-day bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, raising $140,000 to support HIV and AIDS services. These initiatives reflect Box's commitment to diversity, inclusion, and raising awareness for LGBTQIA causes.

Box, a leading cloud content management platform, collaborates with over 74,000 organizations worldwide, including major companies like GE and Coca-Cola, to enable secure and accessible information sharing. In partnership with Microsoft, Box is integrating its services with Azure to enhance digital transformation through interoperability and AI capabilities. This collaboration will include exploring AI technologies and expanding Box Zones using Azure's global data center footprint for in-region data storage. Box aims to maintain its position as an open and integrated platform, ensuring customers benefit from diverse cloud offerings and moving away from closed IT architectures.

Kathleen Castaillac, Director of Global Events at Box, shares insights into her role and personal experiences since joining the company six years ago. Her team devotes significant time to organizing major events like BoxWorks and BoxWorldTour, along with managing national event sponsorships with partners such as Gartner and Microsoft. Kathleen reflects on how event marketing has evolved, with increased emphasis on metrics and ROI, and credits Box for shaping her leadership skills and encouraging her to find her voice in professional settings. She emphasizes the genuine friendships and high expectations among Box employees, highlighting the unique culture and camaraderie within the company.

The evolving nature of teamwork and the increasing use of applications have driven Box to focus on creating a central cloud content management platform that ensures secure, real-time collaboration. Box emphasizes openness and aims to provide a seamless, integrated experience by building thousands of app integrations. A significant development in this endeavor is the new integration between Box and Microsoft Teams, part of Microsoft Office 365, which allows users to access and share Box-stored content directly within Teams. This integration facilitates easier file sharing and real-time collaboration while maintaining robust security and management through Box's platform. The collaboration extends Box's integration capabilities with Office across desktop, mobile, and online environments, underscoring Box's commitment to interoperability and enhancing productivity.

Box Drive is an innovative solution developed by Box to enhance cloud content management by integrating it seamlessly into desktop environments, addressing the limitations faced by traditional syncing products. Traditional syncing products often struggle with reconciling differences between local and remote files due to challenges like race conditions and the need for costly folder scans. Box Drive overcomes these challenges by implementing a virtual filesystem (VFS) that allows for efficient on-demand access to cloud-stored files without consuming local disk space. This architecture leverages a two-part system where a stable kernel component manages basic filesystem calls, while a user-space application handles complex logic, enabling reliable event ordering and differentiation between user-initiated and sync-generated changes. By reworking the syncing engine to interact directly with the local filesystem, Box Drive ensures timely updates and efficient change propagation. This approach not only optimizes desktop interactions with Box but also opens up possibilities for future innovations in content management on desktop platforms.

The Medidata NEXT Executive Forum in New York highlighted emerging trends in healthcare, particularly the integration of data collection, AI, and clinical trial democratization to advance personalized and predictive medicine. Key discussions included the increasing focus on capturing diverse data points over time, with projects like PatientsLikeMe's "Digital Me" initiative and Google/Verily's Project Baseline illustrating efforts to track health transitions through comprehensive data. The role of AI and big data in healthcare is expanding, with cloud technology facilitating machine learning and startups leveraging AI for improved diagnostics and drug discovery. Additionally, tools like Apple's ResearchKit and platforms like Medable are revolutionizing clinical trial data collection and recruitment, making research more accessible and less constrained by geography. These advancements suggest a future where personal health data becomes integral to disease prevention and treatment.

In the first part of a four-post series on information governance, the discussion centers around the challenges and solutions associated with managing digital information in modern work environments. While digital-first and mobile-friendly practices have boosted productivity, they have also introduced risks such as data leakage, loss, and disorganization. Information governance, which encompasses the rules and policies related to managing information, is essential but often poorly implemented, with 73% of organizations lacking formal policies and 23% of those with policies experiencing chaos. Box suggests simplifying information governance to focus on three key areas: document retention, defensible discovery, and security classification, with the current focus on document retention. Effective document retention involves a comprehensive approach to managing a document's lifecycle through stages of active use, semi-active storage, and eventual disposal or archiving. Challenges such as mobile workforces, outdated systems, and manual processes complicate retention efforts. However, automating controls and utilizing cloud-based systems can streamline retention by automatically managing content lifecycles, thereby reducing complexity and inefficiency.

The Box World Tour in Tokyo, attended by over 3,000 participants from diverse industries, highlights the growing importance of cloud content management in transforming workplace productivity and collaboration. At the event, Box announced its expanding customer base, now including 74,000 organizations and 64 percent of the Fortune 500, and emphasized its role in helping Japanese enterprises, including those in highly regulated sectors, streamline operations through modern technology. The tour features discussions on the evolving future of work and showcases milestones such as the introduction of Box Zones, Box KeySafe, and Governance, which support the company's business expansion in Japan. Additionally, Box has reinforced its strategic partnership with Fujitsu, making it an official reseller in Japan, further solidifying its influence in the region. The event not only celebrates Box's achievements but also sets the stage for continued innovation in cloud content management, inviting attendees to further engage with the company at BoxWorks 2017 in San Francisco.

In February 2016, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) introduced the Cloud Computing Compliance Controls Catalog (C5) certification to address the growing cloud computing sector in Germany, setting a new benchmark for cloud providers handling German data by integrating existing security standards like ISO 27001 and demanding increased transparency. By May 2016, the C5 became the mandatory baseline for German government agencies adopting public cloud solutions, which is expected to influence the private sector as well. The C5's alignment with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) means that obtaining the certification can satisfy both sets of stringent data protection requirements. Box, notable for being the second company to achieve the C5 certification, emphasizes its proactive engagement with Data Protection Authorities globally and highlights its robust compliance solutions designed to simplify data protection challenges for clients, ensuring GDPR readiness and enhanced data security.

Apple's announcement of iOS 11, featuring the new Files app, marks a significant step in enhancing file management for Apple users, enabling seamless access to content stored across different platforms like Box, iCloud, and local devices. Box is leveraging this update by integrating its services with the new Files app, allowing users to access and manage their Box content effortlessly on any iOS device, thereby ensuring uninterrupted workflows with enhanced security. This development is part of Box's broader initiative to foster openness and integration within the enterprise, enabling various third-party technologies to work together smoothly. In a landscape where organizations use diverse tools such as Office 365, G Suite, Salesforce, and iOS devices, Box's commitment to building integrations with thousands of applications underscores its dedication to providing a consistent and collaborative experience for its 74,000 customers, including over 64% of the Fortune 500.