Forrester: File sync and share heats up in the enterprise It's the latest technology to invade workplaces after becoming popular among consumers From InfoWorld by Franco Ferrario ferrariof@hotmail.com

1. Forrester – Cloud Computing – News from InfoWorld
July 12, 2013
Forrester: File sync and share heats up in the enterprise
It's the latest technology to invade workplaces after becoming popular among consumers
By Juan Carlos Perez | IDG News Service
In another example of the consumerization of IT, people have embraced cloud storage and file sharing
services like Dropbox both at home and at work, and CIOs better take notice about this trend, according to
a Forrester Research report.
"There is huge business value in these types of services," said Rob Koplowitz, co-author of the study "File
Sync and Share Platforms, Q3 2013. "They solve a bunch of business problems."
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Dropbox and similar services, with their intuitive and user-friendly interfaces, make it easy and convenient
for people to sync files across multiple personal and enterprise devices, including tablets and smartphones,
and share these often large files with colleagues, clients and partners, he said.
The problem for enterprise IT leaders is that this is yet another technology product that employees are
using outside of their companies' controlled IT environment.
"Most CIOs are reacting to the fact that their people are already using this," Koplowitz said.
Unsurprisingly, vendors large and small are moving to respond to this demand, and in the study the authors
outline 26 criteria to evaluate the many providers out there.
Some key decisions that CIOs must make include whether the service and security architecture will be
housed on their company premises or on the vendor cloud, whether they prefer a large vendor or a small
specialist, and how much the company can spend.
In the study, Forrester evaluated products from 16 vendors, using elements like their current support for
mobile devices, deployment flexibility, administration controls, security features, sync capabilities,
integration with third-party systems, and document viewer capabilities. Forrester also took into account
the vendors' strategy and how well it positions them for future improvements and growth. Vendors' market
presence was also factored into the evaluations.
Forrester concluded that Box's eponymous service stands as the leader, closely followed by EMC's
Syncplicity and by IBM's Connections enterprise collaboration suite, which has a file sync and share
component based on the vendor's FileNet architecture.
Although Box is a much smaller player than rivals like IBM, EMC, Google, and Microsoft, it has been focused
on this technology since its founding in 2005, and has thus now spent about eight years developing and
honing its service, which is designed for workplace use.

2. Box has raised more than $300 million in funding from investors including Draper Fisher Jurvetson and
Andreessen Horowitz, and has more than 150,000 customers with more than 15 million end users.
Customers include more than 90 percent of the Fortune 500.
A notch below Box, IBM, and EMC are products from Citrix, Accellion, Egnyte and WatchDox. Also
considered "strong performers" but ranking slightly below are offerings from AirWatch, Alfresco, Dropbox,
and Salesforce.com.
Rounding out that "strong performer" category are Acronis, Hightail, Google's Drive, and Microsoft's
SkyDrive. Novell falls into the "contender" category
Koplowitz cautions that the market is very active, and that vendors are moving in aggressively, so the
universe of options is far from limited to the 16 vendors evaluated in this study.
In addition, the right product for one company may not be the best one for another company, as that will
depend on each company's unique needs, technology priorities and business goals, he said.
What is not in question is the popularity of file sync and share products and the need for enterprise IT
leaders to be informed about that market, so they can give employees the appropriate functionality while
addressing their company's security, business and compliance requirements, according to Koplowitz.
"This has sneaked up on all of us," he said. "It's happened so quickly."
Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and
general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.