Can BOX become a platform for PLM?

Platform is a topic, which comes quite often in the discussion about future of PLM. CIMdata recently came with a topic of “platformization” in PLM. You can catch up on the discussion – A CIMdata dossier: PLM platformization. I can probably divide all existing PLM platforms into two groups – 2D/3D design platform and Object Database Modeling platform. Last year, I charted some of possible options for a foundation of future PLM platform – System Engineering, 2D/3D services, product development standards, New database technologies. From another standpoint, the debates about future PLM platforms are often raising a question of single vs. federated platform for PLM.

New technological trends and demands of customers can bring new platforms into PLM world. One of them is cloud storage. I touched cloud storage topic in my article – CAD companies and cloud storage strategies. One of the points was related to longevity of “cloud storage” business. Cloud companies want to store your data. It gives them an opportunity to understand your business better. However, the prediction is that cloud storage cost is eventually coming to zero. Which leaves cloud companies with the need to develop solutions to elevate productivity and improve collaboration and document creation. This is where it comes to PLM as a future platform for product innovation.

BOX is a company which is located at the intersection of cloud storage and enterprise business. My attention was caught by BI article – In One Slide, Box Explains What Everybody’s Getting Wrong About The Company. Here is the slide:

Here is an interesting passage and conclusion from the article:

In an interview with Business Insider, Box CEO Aaron Levie said he knew storage business was going to turn into a commodity business back when he first started the company. Instead, he said he’s creating a platform business, where more value is added on top of things like storage, computing, and security. “It’s all about going into the top 8 to 10 industries and finding where are companies reimagining their business, where are they going digital, where are they transforming their business model, and how does Box act as a platform that could accelerate that push into the future,” he said. If the critics are right, Box is doomed. If Box is right, it has a chance at being a valuable enterprise company along the lines of Salesforce.

Looking on customers, partners and, especially BOX enterprise content collaboration platform, made me think about an interesting intersection between product lifecycle and BOX business. Of course BOX is not in the business of design and engineering software. However, enterprise collaboration has a significant overlap with what most of PLM platforms are providing – metadata, security, workflow, collaboration, content search. These are topics that always presented in PLM. It seems to me current focus of BOX is outside of manufacturing companies. However, maybe future BOX growth will take it towards manufacturing enterprises.

What is my conclusion? I don’t think BOX is focusing today on manufacturing companies. However, elements of BOX platform have a perfect sense when you think about product lifecycle collaboration. What is especially interesting is content collaboration on an enterprise scale. This is a topic, which most of PLM companies are struggling with. Existing PLM platforms have good representation in engineering domain, but lack of broad enterprise adoption. This is a place where future competition between PLM vendors and BOX (or similar companies) can occur. On the other side, BOX can become a platform to take PLM collaboration forward in enterprise companies. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Picture credits box.com