Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share • Hacker News Board

Re: Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share

#11

Post by tmuir » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 1:32 AM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #5

loosescrews wrote: post #3

Who actually uses Box? Does anyone here use their service? Do they have some submarket cornered? Most of what I hear about them is related to their IPO or recruitment.

I don't know that they have a submarket cornered per se, but my university seems to be using them exclusively for the online class system (log in / download lecture files, etc). On my own I've been using them for about 5 years, give or take. I use it over Dropbox a majority of the time. I personally like Box. I think it works well enough and it has a desktop syncing client for regular customers now. Used to be exclus…

What features does Box have that Dropbox doesnt? I realize that as a nonpaying user, I'm definitely not in the target market, but are there killer apps besides the normal usecases of a synced folder on all of your devices and sharing links to those files?

Re: Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share

#12

Post by foolfoolz » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 1:36 AM UTC

salemh wrote: post #8

TheBiv wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their 'submarket' is Enterprise. Their s-1 stated that they have 48% of all Fortune 500 companies as clients and ~44k paying clients total. No idea the seat count or per company revenue.

Yup, they do "big" integration well. The actual system is inferior UI wise (personal opinion) compared to DropBox. Sync is worse then DropBox [edit: meant, better then] Google Drive (I find Drive worse then DropBox). As far as reliability, its top notch, but I can't state anything on DropBox/Drive except that Drive has screwed up version control at a prior company. Second biggest failing: Its own "collab" format is h…

Box has had a tree view for many years it's just not obvious where it it's located.

If you are viewing folders, look at the bread crumb navigation. The first bread crumb will have drop down arrow which gives you a folder tree view. This tree also has search.

Re: Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share

#13

Post by msoad » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 1:37 AM UTC

loosescrews wrote: post #3

Who actually uses Box? Does anyone here use their service? Do they have some submarket cornered? Most of what I hear about them is related to their IPO or recruitment.

We used to pay for bot Box and Google Apps. Our IT department ditched Box in favor of Google Drive. We are a enterprise company.

Re: Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share

#14

Post by ritchiea » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 1:41 AM UTC

loosescrews wrote: post #3

Who actually uses Box? Does anyone here use their service? Do they have some submarket cornered? Most of what I hear about them is related to their IPO or recruitment.

I have an acquaintance who works there and their clients are all really big companies like Pepsi. And from my impression it's not technical departments that tend to purchase their services which is why you asking yourself "who uses this?". One of the things you seem to buy with Box is a lot of hand holding and simple technical assistance.

Re: Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share

#15

Post by pbreit » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 1:45 AM UTC

loosescrews wrote: post #3

Who actually uses Box? Does anyone here use their service? Do they have some submarket cornered? Most of what I hear about them is related to their IPO or recruitment.

It's not consumer like DropBox. And not only is it enterprise but it is frequently behind the scenes. So for example if you wanted to create an app that had storage needs beyond a simple repository like S3.

Re: Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share

#16

Post by bradb3030 » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 1:57 AM UTC

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #7

The NYT[1] has some important context missing in the WSJ summary: > At that price, the company will still be valued at $1.7 billion, but it is well below the $2.4 billion valuation sold to investors in a financing round last summer. The float looks small though, so there's hope for last round's muppets. [1] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/online-storage-provid...

Good post. I don't understand why they focused on share price. Companies routinely do reverse share splits pre-IPO to make the total number of shares what they need to be for the valuation divided by shares to equal $12-18. That point seems to be just a magical desired range for SaaS IPO's. Someone smarter than I may know the reason, but I think they could have hit nearly any share price they wanted to.

Re: Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share

#17

Post by dang » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 2:00 AM UTC

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #7

The NYT[1] has some important context missing in the WSJ summary: > At that price, the company will still be valued at $1.7 billion, but it is well below the $2.4 billion valuation sold to investors in a financing round last summer. The float looks small though, so there's hope for last round's muppets. [1] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/online-storage-provid...

Thanks, we'll change the url to that from http://www.wsj.com/articles/box-inc-ipo-prices-at-14-a-share....

Re: Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share

#18

Post by kondro » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 2:06 AM UTC

loosescrews wrote: post #3

Who actually uses Box? Does anyone here use their service? Do they have some submarket cornered? Most of what I hear about them is related to their IPO or recruitment.

Definitely Enterprise. Box has pretty fine-grained permission/sharing management, including when/how these shares expire (as an example).

Re: Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share

#19

Post by rokhayakebe » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 2:44 AM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #2

There isn't much content in the article worth getting around the WSJ Paywall; Online-storage company Box Inc. priced its initial public offering at $14 apiece late Thursday, above expectations, according to a person familiar with the offering. The deal raised $175 million by selling 12.5 million shares, according to the person. The company had been looking to sell 12.5 million shares in the range of $11 to $13 a shar…

Sometimes I wished all articles were written as:

Facts: Box, online storage co, CEO A. Levy, IPO set for xx/xx/20xx, previously raised $175M in x rounds, looking to raise $175M at PO, shares priced at $14, Underwriter is JPM.

Opinion: Blah Blah Blah

Re: Online Storage Provider Box Prices I.P.O. at $14 a Share

#20

Post by spike021 » Fri, Jan 23, 2015, 3:10 AM UTC

tmuir wrote: post #11

spike021 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that they have a submarket cornered per se, but my university seems to be using them exclusively for the online class system (log in / download lecture files, etc). On my own I've been using them for about 5 years, give or take. I use it over Dropbox a majority of the time. I personally like Box. I think it works well enough and it has a desktop syncing client for regular customers now. Used to be exclus…

What features does Box have that Dropbox doesnt? I realize that as a nonpaying user, I'm definitely not in the target market, but are there killer apps besides the normal usecases of a synced folder on all of your devices and sharing links to those files?

I think they have mostly equal features, but I don't use Dropbox extensively so I can't say exactly. I actually am a nonpaying user for Box as well.

I have the ability to edit/create documents in Microsoft Office or Google Drive formats right in my Box account. I don't use any killer apps though. But it works well enough for nearly every use case I've had in the time I've used it, with the exception that file upload size limit is small. Might be around 100 megabytes max.

There's also versioning for files, if you need that kind of feature.