Box unpacks new tools to 'increase the velocity of business'

New mobile, web and platform tools aim to enhance viewing and sharing experiences

Box has today launched a suite of new online document storage and collaboration products that its CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie described as aiming to "increase the velocity of business".

The announcements were made at BoxWorks, the firm's annual conference in San Francisco.

The tools range from web and mobile products through to a new content creation tool native to Box, and the ability to add context to business content with metadata.

"Box is the connective fabric for enterprise content, helping individuals, companies and industries do more with their information," said Levie. "At Box, our job is to reduce the barriers to collaboration, and ultimately to increase the velocity of business. With today's announcements, we're pushing the boundaries of what's possible for Box's customers and for the tens of thousands of developers building on our platform."

Five new products and enhancements were launched:

File Preview - This tool has emerged from Box's acquisition of Crocodoc in May this year, and makes use of the firm's HTML5 technology. It improves content and navigation workflows, and breaks different file types, including PDFs, Word documents and PowerPoint slides down to their basic data, and reassembles them seamlessly in HTML5 on a mobile device, which means that separate third-party programmes are no longer needed to view certain file types. It will be available later this year.

Box for iPhone and iPad - The new Box iOS app was completely rebuilt using the technology behind Folders, another firm that Box acquired earlier this year. It aims to make viewing any content - from photos and videos to PDFs and presentations - more elegant, rich and engaging. The new animated swipe page-turning functionality drew spontaneous applause from the audience.

Box Notes - This aims to provide a clean, simple and lightweight editing interface to enable users to quickly create content and facilitate collaboration directly on Box.

New Admin & Developer Tools

Metadata - A new addition to the Box web application and Content API, metadata provides a way to add new data types and information to the content stored on the platform. The use case given at the launch was an X-ray stored on a hospital system. With metadata, the picture can contain the name of the patient, the doctor, diagnosis, treatment, and suggested follow-up. Without metadata, the picture by itself means nothing.

Admin Console Enhancements - A new rules engine powers the enhanced Box admin console, which now enables admins to create customisable security policies and alerts for uploads, downloads and sharing, to more closely manage content actions within an organisation. The console also offers content process automation tools for managing the flow of information.