Computerworld

Box offers 50GB for free to users who try its Apple iOS app

Users have 30 days to get the 50GB of capacity

Cloud storage service Box announced today it's giving away 50GB of free storage for users who try the new version of its Apple iOS app.

Box relaunched its iOS app today

In order to get the 50 free gigabytes of cloud capacity, users must download the app within the next 30 days, according to the company's official blog.

"We've overhauled our app to make it super-fast, simpler to use and more immersive. The result, we believe, is the best content viewing and collaboration experience available today for your iOS device," Box wrote in the blog.

Unlike other cloud storage services that typically offer 2GB of free capacity to whet the appetites of users, such as Dropbox, Box normally offers 10 GB of free storage. Box's service was also not originally designed for consumer use. The site caters to business users with greater need for security around their data and faster data transfer rates.

Last year, Box added an Accelerator service, which provides users with 10 times faster uploads (7MB/s) than its traditional service.

Box, DropBox and other cloud storage services, such as SugarSync, Carbonite and Mozy, have been under increasing pressure from nontraditional industry behemoths, such as Microsoft with Azure, Apple with iCloud and most recently, Google with its Drive offering.

Google Drive, which launched in 2012, undercut competitors' prices and shook the industry to its core, offering 5GB of free capacity and allowing an upgrade to 25GB for $2.49 a month.

Lucas Mearian covers consumer data storage, consumerization of IT, mobile device management, renewable energy, telematics/car tech and entertainment tech for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian or subscribe to Lucas's RSS feed. His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com.

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