Box has added another function to its growing stockpile of workplace tools.
The online storage and collaboration services provider revealed June 16 that it is acquiring 2-year-old Streem, a four-person, San Francisco-based startup that has developed a new way to effectively “stream” cloud content–any type of application–to users’ desktops. Financial details of the transaction were not released.
Streem’s IT allows a user to mount a cloud drive onto a PC–making documents, presentations, videos and files available without the limitations of a local hard disk and effectively turning the cloud into an “unlimited” drive, Box founder and CEO Aaron Levie wrote in a blog post.
“Streem is focused on letting you get to all of your content in the cloud, right on your desktop. Rather than files living directly on your computer’s disk, they are instead securely ‘streamed’ to you on demand when you need to interact with them. And to further optimize the experience and support low-bandwidth environments, Streem has developed enhanced video and media streaming technology to ensure content is accessible from the cloud as fast as it is locally. “
Levie said that for customers across data-intensive industries, such as media and entertainment, oil and gas, health care, and manufacturing, “this means instant access to far larger volumes of data than what your local drives can support.”
For enterprises in regulated industries such as life sciences and financial services, “it means better protection and control of information and where it lives,” Levie said.
There is no specific timeline set for Streem to be incorporated into Box, Levie said.