Sunday, November 20, 2011

Making Money Opportunities


Box, the online file storage and sharing company, on Thursday debuted the Box Innovation Network, also branded as “/bin,” a platform to make it easy for third party developers to create enterprise-focused apps utilizing Box’s APIs. The company also announced a $2 million fund aimed at supporting developers building the most promising apps on /bin.


Box has assembled a number of partners for /bin’s launch, including Heroku, Rackspace and Cloud Foundry, whose services can help host the apps that are built using Box’s framework. Twilio, SnapLogic and Appcelerator are also /bin launch partners, and their services can be used to help developers build apps more efficiently.


Order of magnitude app growth


Box isn’t new to working with third-party app developers: The company currently has an app store with around 150 applications on it today, Box CEO Aaron Levie told me in a recent interview. But /bin is aimed at making it easy for many more apps to be built using the company’s technology framework. “We wanted to make an order of magnitude change in the amount of Box-oriented apps out there,” Levie said. (Levie will be speaking at our Net:Work event on Dec. 8.)


/bin was born largely out of necessity. Many Box customers have requested specific features, such as the ability for a doctor to use an iPad to access a patient’s CAT scan image document hosted on Box. “We get requests every day for features that we don’t offer in some really specific but useful areas,” Box VP of platform Chris Yeh said in an interview. “These kinds of things we’re never going to be able to build out ourselves, and /bin makes it easier for other people to create those things.”


Adding cash to the equation


To that end, Box says it will spend up to $2 million within the next year to invest in applications built on /bin. The money will go toward equity investments in apps, intellectual property acquisitions, and co-development projects.


Overall it’s a very promising program, but certain details are still fuzzy. For example, no financial details of the /bin platform have been solidified yet, meaning that there are no established rules for whether Box will take a cut of any revenue generated by an app built on the platform, or how much that cut will be. Yeh tells me the company will probably establish that on a case-by-case basis going forward, as /bin matures. It seems to me that those details should be firmed up soon to make developers confident about making serious apps on the platform. But in general, it will be interesting to see what kinds of apps are built with /bin in the weeks and months ahead.


Here’s a video explaining how /bin works:



Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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  • What Enterprise Software Vendors Could Learn from the Consumer Space
  • Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
  • A field guide to cloud computing: current trends, future opportunities

Although Starz appears to be off the market for now, CEO Chris Albrecht told investors today that his channel should still be in the catbird seat as digital media grow. But “it will take money” to produce the kind of programming that will set Starz apart from basic cable channels that spend as much as $3M an hour for originals, he said at a conference organized by his parent company Liberty Media. He wants Starz’ shows to have a theatrical feel with iconic, larger than life characters and broad appeal. He assured the audience that he won’t break the bank, though: For example, Spartacus ”is shot completely inside a warehouse in New Zealand….This is the way they make theatrical movies now.” Also Starz has decreased its spending on theatrical films. “That money will be reinvested in original programming.” Starz still plans to run theatricals from its premium TV agreements with Disney, which runs to 2016, and Sony, which goes to 2017.


The biggest new opportunities are in digital media: Starz next year will launch its own streaming platform for its pay TV customers, similar to HBO Go, Albrecht says. That will “get us in front of younger eyeballs and make our product as compelling as anything in the premium space.” Albrecht also is “willing to have the conversations” with companies that want to challenge cable and satellite providers by licensing traditional channels for a streamed service. “Someone will do it,” he says. For now, though, he’s focused on making a subscription VOD deal to replace the one with Netflix that Starz decided not to renew. “We are in very active discussions” with other players, he says. Starz backed away from Netflix because the channel wants to be seen as special—deserving a higher price. Albrecht is counting on someone to launch a premium digital subscription VOD service, and if Starz had stuck with Netflix then “we would have made it almost impossible for anyone else to come into this space.”


 


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Box, the online file storage and sharing company, on Thursday debuted the Box Innovation Network, also branded as “/bin,” a platform to make it easy for third party developers to create enterprise-focused apps utilizing Box’s APIs. The company also announced a $2 million fund aimed at supporting developers building the most promising apps on /bin.


Box has assembled a number of partners for /bin’s launch, including Heroku, Rackspace and Cloud Foundry, whose services can help host the apps that are built using Box’s framework. Twilio, SnapLogic and Appcelerator are also /bin launch partners, and their services can be used to help developers build apps more efficiently.


Order of magnitude app growth


Box isn’t new to working with third-party app developers: The company currently has an app store with around 150 applications on it today, Box CEO Aaron Levie told me in a recent interview. But /bin is aimed at making it easy for many more apps to be built using the company’s technology framework. “We wanted to make an order of magnitude change in the amount of Box-oriented apps out there,” Levie said. (Levie will be speaking at our Net:Work event on Dec. 8.)


/bin was born largely out of necessity. Many Box customers have requested specific features, such as the ability for a doctor to use an iPad to access a patient’s CAT scan image document hosted on Box. “We get requests every day for features that we don’t offer in some really specific but useful areas,” Box VP of platform Chris Yeh said in an interview. “These kinds of things we’re never going to be able to build out ourselves, and /bin makes it easier for other people to create those things.”


Adding cash to the equation


To that end, Box says it will spend up to $2 million within the next year to invest in applications built on /bin. The money will go toward equity investments in apps, intellectual property acquisitions, and co-development projects.


Overall it’s a very promising program, but certain details are still fuzzy. For example, no financial details of the /bin platform have been solidified yet, meaning that there are no established rules for whether Box will take a cut of any revenue generated by an app built on the platform, or how much that cut will be. Yeh tells me the company will probably establish that on a case-by-case basis going forward, as /bin matures. It seems to me that those details should be firmed up soon to make developers confident about making serious apps on the platform. But in general, it will be interesting to see what kinds of apps are built with /bin in the weeks and months ahead.


Here’s a video explaining how /bin works:



Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

  • What Enterprise Software Vendors Could Learn from the Consumer Space
  • Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
  • A field guide to cloud computing: current trends, future opportunities

Although Starz appears to be off the market for now, CEO Chris Albrecht told investors today that his channel should still be in the catbird seat as digital media grow. But “it will take money” to produce the kind of programming that will set Starz apart from basic cable channels that spend as much as $3M an hour for originals, he said at a conference organized by his parent company Liberty Media. He wants Starz’ shows to have a theatrical feel with iconic, larger than life characters and broad appeal. He assured the audience that he won’t break the bank, though: For example, Spartacus ”is shot completely inside a warehouse in New Zealand….This is the way they make theatrical movies now.” Also Starz has decreased its spending on theatrical films. “That money will be reinvested in original programming.” Starz still plans to run theatricals from its premium TV agreements with Disney, which runs to 2016, and Sony, which goes to 2017.


The biggest new opportunities are in digital media: Starz next year will launch its own streaming platform for its pay TV customers, similar to HBO Go, Albrecht says. That will “get us in front of younger eyeballs and make our product as compelling as anything in the premium space.” Albrecht also is “willing to have the conversations” with companies that want to challenge cable and satellite providers by licensing traditional channels for a streamed service. “Someone will do it,” he says. For now, though, he’s focused on making a subscription VOD deal to replace the one with Netflix that Starz decided not to renew. “We are in very active discussions” with other players, he says. Starz backed away from Netflix because the channel wants to be seen as special—deserving a higher price. Albrecht is counting on someone to launch a premium digital subscription VOD service, and if Starz had stuck with Netflix then “we would have made it almost impossible for anyone else to come into this space.”


 


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