In "The Untouchables" Sean Connery’s character explained "the Chicago way" to Kevin Costner’s character thus: "They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue." The stakes aren’t life-and-death in the cloud storage wars, but Box.net is sending an unmistakable message to Apple upon its rollout of iCloud. Apple is giving away 5GB of storage in the cloud? Fine, Box.net will give away 50GB. That’s the Silicon Valley way.
In "The Untouchables" Sean Connery’s character explained "the Chicago way" to Kevin Costner’s character thus: "They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue." The stakes aren’t life-and-death in the cloud storage wars, but Box.net is sending an unmistakable message to Apple upon its rollout of iCloud. Apple is giving away 5GB of storage in the cloud? Fine, Box.net will give away 50GB. That’s the Silicon Valley way.
Until December 2, 2011, users with a free personal storage account on Box.net will receive an upgrade to 50GB of space by downloading the latest version of the Box iOS app. The typical free account is 5GB. The offer is time-limited, but the space remains in your account for as long as you leave it active. Apparently there was some confusion on this point since the company has published a FAQ to clear up any uncertainty about the terms and conditions.
One thing to note is that the 50GB is usable by any device that can connect to the service, not just iOS devices. That means Windows and Android users can get in on the fun as long as they are able to download the iOS app to a compatible device somewhere. If that’s not possible, the aforementioned FAQ mentions similar promotions for other devices and promises more in the future. Another thing to understand is that the free personal accounts don’t support auto-syncing among devices, though that’s possible with a paid account.
Finally, there is a limit of 100MB per upload after the 50GB upgrade kicks in. That’s an increase from the 25MB limit that’s usually a condition of the free account. What the service does provide, beyond a lot of free storage space, is the ability to share files with others merely by sending them a URL. Plus, many iOS (and Android) applications support Box.net as a storage option.
