Box Launches Box Notes To Take On Google Docs
Box Launches Box Notes, Its Own Take On Google Docs
Box is launching a cloud-based document collaboration service called Box Notes, its own version of 
  Google
  Docs.
Box is known for its cloud-based content storage and collaboration service. But now the company is moving into applications. The Box Notes application, which is free for Box users, is designed for teams to create documents and collaborate in real-time.

The app uses what are called "Note Heads," which are icons of each user that look like 
  Facebook
 's Chat Heads. When people are editing a document, you can see their edits in real-time and the Note Head on the side of the document to indicate who is editing. Instead of uploading documents and checking-in or checking-out files, teams can simply work on one document in the cloud. "It's a very simple social editing experience around content," says Aaron Levie, CEO of Box. "It lets us go deeper. Rather than publishing content into Box, people can get their work and collaborate in real-time."
Of course, there are other apps such as Google Docs, 
  Jive Software
 , and others that have similar features. Box is different because it's built on Box's enterprise security platform. For example, Box is HIPAA-compliant so that companies can collaborate on healthcare documents, which they can't on other services, Levie says.

More importantly, every large document sharing and storage company now has (or will soon have) both storage and syncing tools for traditional files and also cloud-based collaboration tools--to eventually replace traditional files. Businesses will increasingly move to cloud-based collaboration tools. But they still are using traditional software and traditional content files. That means companies like Dropbox, Box, Salesforce, Jive and Google will increasingly compete for the same customers. 
  Salesforce.com
  just announced Salesforce Files to store and sync files, to go along with its Chatter and other collaboration tools. Google has Google Drive and Google Docs. Dropbox hasn't added any major collaboration applications, but it did buy Mailbox, a hot mobile email application.

Box Notes as a product moves the company closer to the "creation process" of work, rather than waiting for people to upload documents to Box after they are finished. Instead of having just finished documents on Box, users would have all the notes and other processes of creation on Box, which will be searchable and sharable. That makes much more mission critical for companies.
The Box Notes app includes other features like annotations, sharing files and concurrent editing. Coming soon is a mobile version, as well as the ability to add images, video and audio. Also coming soon is version history and offline editing.

Box has raised more than $300 million total from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Besssemer Venture Partners, DFJ Growth, General Atlantic, New Enterprise Associates, Salesforce.com, Scale Venture Partners and Social + Capital Partnership. Box has 180,000 businesses using the service and 20 million users, including big names such as GlaxoSmithKline, Sony, Netflix and the Gap.