IBM-Box enterprise deal yields new content tools

The companies want to combine IBM's back-end smarts with Box's user experience in new tools for both local and cloud data. The ultimate aim is to help usher enterprises into the cloud era of content management. 

On Wednesday at the BoxWorks conference in San Francisco, IBM and Box announced two products that are available now and two others that are coming later this year.

Box has excelled at connecting enterprise users to cloud-based data through desktops and mobile devices. The partnership should help to build inroads for Box into established enterprises that want to give their employees and partners modern document access without sacrificing the central controls they are used to. 

To start with, the companies are introducing IBM Content Navigator with Box, which lets users search for, use and share content through the same interface whether it's stored on-premise or on Box. Content Navigator isn't a preset tool but a platform that lets enterprises develop their own system and user interface.

Also on Wednesday, they rolled out IBM StoredIQ with Box, which can provide an in-depth assessment of unstructured data across Box and on-premises environments. That tool is designed to help users classify and organize data.

Future products will include IBM Case Manager with Box, for sharing content on Box with external participants, and IBM Datacap on Box. Datacap is designed to capture documents, extract important information from them and store them on Box. 

Enterprises will later be able to put data on cloud platforms like IBM's SoftLayer and still get to it through a Box interface, Box said in a blog post. 

Also at BoxWorks, the company boosted its feature set for controlling access to data. Box announced Legal Holds, which lets companies prevent content stored on Box from being deleted if it may be needed for legal discovery in connection with a lawsuit. It also announced Device Trust, coming later this year, for enterprises to certify a device's security posture before it lets a user access Box content from that device.