Box Drive is here to help firms retire legacy network file share infrastructure

Cloud storage provider Box has recently announced the launch of Box Drive, a desktop application which aims to match the power of the cloud with the more familiar feel of traditional network drives.

The goal of the product is to ‘make it easier to adopt the cloud without changing the way people work’. “The future of work is working in the cloud,” the company notes. “Box Drive makes moving to the cloud incredibly easy. Users are freed from the constraints of their local hard drives because they have instant access to all their files in the cloud and real-time collaboration is even more simple and intuitive.”

“Box Drive combines infinite access to the cloud with an intuitive, natively integrated desktop experiences that is familiar to hundreds of millions of people today in enterprises all over the world,” said Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box in a statement. “Not only will Box Drive make collaborating on content easier than ever before, it also signals the beginning of the end for expensive network file shares.

“With Box Drive, enterprises can accelerate their move to the cloud, enhance security, and significantly reduce IT costs.”

While not in the same ballpark with regards to technology, this move from Box is reminiscent of Amazon Web Services (AWS), who announced the general availability of Greengrass earlier this month. Greengrass enables users to perform tasks on premise while leveraging the process, analytics and storage of the AWS cloud.

This differs from Box in that the storage provider is trying to help organisations phase out expensive legacy infrastructure such as traditional network file shares. The company added that estimated cost savings through retiring legacy tech – across industries such as real estate, healthcare, and finance – can be as high as $6 million over three years.

‘We are shutting down unlimited cloud storage plan,’ says Amazon

Amazon has told customers it will no longer offer an unlimited cloud storage plan – although Prime members will continue to benefit from the service.

In an updated FAQ page, the company confirmed new customers will have the choice of 100 GB for $11.99 and 1 TB for $59.99, with those wishing for more able to go up to 30 TB at an additional $59.99 per terabyte. Any customer who signs up for storage with Amazon will automatically get 5 GB for free.

“Current customers will keep their existing unlimited storage plan through its expiration date,” Amazon explains. “At the end of their existing subscription, customers with auto-renew turned on and 1 TB or less of data stored will be renewed into the 1 TB plan for $59.99 per year.”

This is not the first time a vendor has cut ties on its all you can eat plans. In 2015 Microsoft turned off its unlimited OneDrive option for Office 365 customers, arguing some users took advantage to store ‘entire movie collections and DVR recordings’ with a 75 TB haul in the most extreme cases. “Instead of focusing on extreme backup scenarios, we want to remain focused on delivering high value productivity and collaboration experiences that benefit the majority of OneDrive users,” the company wrote at the time.