This week, I’m experimenting with a completely different format for the show! Last weekend I had a great conversation with Aaron Levie, Co-Founder and CEO of Box.net, and I will be featuring his interview as a 3-part series, with videos posted on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Do let me know what you think about this new structure!

Box.net is a 3 1/2 year old startup specializing in the storage, sharing, and management of files online. Uploaded files can be accessed from any computer and securely shared with anyone over the internet; this may eventually become the most useful way to manage files, with the increased popularity of cloud computing, social networking, and online collaboration. About a year ago, the company launched its OpenBox API, enabling developers to integrate Box.net files with their online applications, enhancing the functionality of the Box.net platform. Through OpenBox, Box.net can be seamlessly used with Facebook, Twitter, eFax, Zoho (online office software), EditGrid (online spreadsheet software), Picnik (online photo editing software), Autodesk (online 3D graphic design), and many other applications.

Late last week, Box.net and Dell announced a partnership (BIG news for a startup!), where purchasers of the just-launched Inspiron Mini 9 laptop will be able to sign up for 2GB of free storage with Box.net. This sleek, compact, and affordable new “netbook” laptop offers only 4-16GB of disk space, so additional storage through Box.net will be valuable for Inspiron Mini owners, and of course allow ease of online sharing and collaboration. Aaron discusses more details about this relationship, sharing how Box.net managed to get noticed by Dell, and Box’s role in the emergence of netbooks as a new trend for inexpensive mobile computing in the cloud. He also discusses some details on the Box.net back-end and redundancy/security features, and concludes this segment with how they differentiate themselves from new and former file storage companies like iBackup and XDrive, allowing them to achieve success where others have failed.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for Part 2 of my interview with Aaron!

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Posted in Hardware, Web 2.0 |