BoxWorks 2016 day 1 - the good, the bad and the ugly
- Summary:
- BoxWorks 2016 was a mixed bag where I felt that Box missed an opportunity to truly showcase how well customers are succeeding with its solutions
The BoxWorks 2016 CEO keynote is the third I've tuned into in as many weeks. Like the other two, it got off to a rocky start. Unlike the other two, it got considerably better. Here's the good, the bad and the ugly.
A slow start
I've no idea why this is the case, but it is almost becoming routine for CEO keynotes to start later than advertised. On this occasion, we were almost 15 minutes into the scheduled time before anything happened. When Aaron Levie CEO came on stage through a cloud of artificial smoke, he needed to use his asthma puffer to get over the experience. Levie is well known for being something of a joker but someone somewhere should have thought that one through a little more carefully. Personally I felt bad for the man.
Levie opened up with a history lesson about Box which I felt was un-necessary. Yes, Box is 'only' 10 years old but it has been a public company for a while. I'm far from convinced that 5,000 attendees, some of whom will undoubtedly be prospects, need that recap which took us up to the 45 minute scheduled mark before anything I could find of value was said.
Back channel conversation reminded me that the starting content is marketing. That may be so but it isn't working for me and even if I try to push my natural tendency to be cynical to the back of my mind, I can't come up with a good reason for changing my view.
The 'let's hear from customers' segment was a video collage which contained all the right words of praise but didn't tell us anything of substance. That was disappointing because given that Box is positioning itself as an enterprise content platform, I would have enjoyed real war stories. Fortunately, those came later in a breakout which I'll discuss separately.
Product goodness
Then we got into product. I'm not normally convinced that product announcements need be overly detailed in keynotes and here, the company got the balance just about right with Chris Yeh providing an at times laconic and ironic twist to some of his remarks, including one that drew giggles from the audience. Turning to an on stage colleague who had made a remark he said:
Did you really call me your little demo helper? Right.
Box was showcasing the 'all new Box' so there was a lot to get through and my sense was they accomplished enough to leave customers with plenty of questions to pick up in the breakouts. Some of the new things coming like group folders and simpler navigation will please larger customers, some of whom told me they are hefting hundreds of file folders. Easier and more intuitive navigation that doesn't require starting at a root will also please. Support for 3D and 360 degree image viewing is right up there as a way of showing off product and has a clear role in design.
I particularly like the ability to add annotations inside activity streams. For die-hard Word users, this will be something of a wrench but in my mind, the placement of annotations outside the main editing area of an Office 365 document makes so much good sense when you see it in action.
All in, the demos gave us plenty to look forward to without overwhelming and showed how Box is applying pressure on competitors.
An ongoing theme with Box is its ambitions to become the content platform of choice among enterprises. This is a hard trick to pull off because the company's legacy is one of serving small and mid-sized business, while at the same time, the competitive landscape is tough. The all new Excel Viewer got a loud round of applause. And in that you can deduce that Box is meeting its stated aim since Excel is the number cruncher's favorite tool.
Seeing CIOs from the likes of Coca-Cola and the GSA fielding questions related to business transformation in a later Q&A served as a solid reference point, especially in the area of security and compliance.
When I met with a UK customer in local government, I was surprised to learn that near viral adoption had led to a doubling of license purchase inside a year.
Box is clearly popular once it establishes a presence. The coming upgrades can only serve to cement that perception.
The partnership trifecta
Another element of the enterprise 'chops' story comes from the way Box has worked on developing relationships with the trifecta of Microsoft, IBM and no wGoogle. I found it interesting watching all three partners both in the keynote and various breakouts happy to play the subsidiary role.
Box seemed comfortable with successively bringing executives from all three companies onto the stage but it was the discussion between Levie and Diane Greene, who heads Google's cloud business, that left an indelible impression. Greene was a co-founder of VMWare and CEO of that company from 1998 to 2008. Regular readers will know that VMWare has become one of the giants of the industry.
Greene, who I found to be humble, warm and authentic, is a perfect foil to Levie's impish style. Well respected, Greene has nothing to prove to the Silicon Valley crowd but she was brought into Google during late 2015 to sort out the messy enterprise unit. I have long felt that Google was not serious about the enterprise because despite various marketing forays and a slew of products claiming to compete with Microsoft, it was always Gmail that made the headlines. Google Docs for example just didn't figure.
Greene has made numerous changes and I was impressed to hear her talk so obviously admiring of Levie's achievements and the partnership being forged between the two companies. If that partnership bears genuine fruit in the marketplace, then I for one will be a happy person. We use Google Docs for a variety of purposes, sometimes alongside Office products. Having that choice inside a Box environment is one way to ensure blanket reach, even though Microsoft Office remains the 'senior' participant in the enterprise.
My take
I started the day wondering if the event gods had cursed me into a forced march along the path of mediocrity. I ended up much happier than I anticipated having the opportunity to meet with CIOs and customers who talked with a got answers from a Box that is maturing rapidly.
While it is important for Box to emphasize its status as an important partner to some of the tech giants, it needs to up its game in terms of bringing customers to the keynote stage. They are after all, every vendor's key ambassadors and relegating them to break out sessions means that some attendees don't get to hear about the successes which serve as validation that cloud computing Box-style is safe, secure and useful.