Putting it all in the cloud

For consumers, Dropbox is probably the best known such service, providing syncing of documents across most types of computers and mobile devices. However Dropbox has a serious competitor in Box.net, especially in the potentially lucrative market for corporate file sharing. Charging $15 per user per month for business accounts, and negotiated rates for enterprise accounts, Box claims to have 100,000 organizations signed up, including 82 percent of the Fortune 500.

The service on iOS

Eventbrite makes use of the service on iOS and Android phones and tablets. The company as well has a large population of Mac users, and was granted early access to the Box Sync client for Mac released in September. Each time Eventbrite hires an employee, Pino said the newcomers get a tutorial on how to store files in Box and the IT team helps them make sure documents are backed up in the service. For instance, Box acts as back-end storage for anything created in Google Docs. It as well comes in handy for files that aren't if not stored in a cloud platform. Pino said when his own computer crashed a few weeks ago, near all of his data was synced with Box, making it easy to recover.

Dropbox has a larger user base than Box.net, with 45 million users compared to 8 million for Box, and is obviously trying to bolster its standing in the business world. Dropbox recently rolled out Dropbox for Teams, with administrative controls and dedicated phone support, at a price starting at $795 a year for five users, with 1,000GB of storage..

Dropbox recently raised $250 million in venture funding, during Box raked in about $81 million afterwards turning down an acquisition offer. Box has as well lined up numerous partners to make its offering more attractive to developers and businesses. The so-called "Box Research Network" includes Appcelerator, Cloud Foundry, Heroku, Rackspace, SnapLogic, and Twilio, and aims to boost development of enterprise applications that connect to the Box platform. Box as well has a deal with HP to ship PCs with the Box syncing service installed and give clients free accounts and discounted upgrade options.