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1 C U S T O M E R N E E D S A N D S T R A T E G I E S C o m p e t i t i v e R e v i e w o f S e l e c t e d C l o u d F i l e S h a r i n g a n d C o l l a b o r a t i o n S e r v i c e s Maureen Fleming Kate Silverstein I N T H I S E X C E R P T Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA USA P F The content for this excerpt was taken directly from the IDC document Competitive Review of Selected Cloud File Sharing and Collaboration Services by Maureen Fleming and Kate Silverstein (Doc # ). All or parts of the following sections are included in this excerpt: IDC Opinion, In This Study, Situation Overview, Future Outlook and Essential Guidance. Also included are a full or edited version of Table 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, as well as a full or edited version of Figure 1, 2, and 3. I D C O P I N I O N File sharing services allow an individual to synchronize files across all devices used by that individual. Adding collaboration to the mix means that groups of users are able to work together and share files across the team, who are then also able to access the folders and files from any common device, whether PC, Mac, smartphone, or tablet. Key findings in this document include: Any product supporting today's knowledge worker cuts across a multitude of technologies, and cloud file sharing and collaboration (CFSC) services are no exception. Embedded content management, managed file transfer (MFT), storage, collaboration, security, integration, and mobile capabilities are all elements of the offerings. We evaluated CFSC services provided by Box, Dropbox, and YouSendIt. Collectively, these companies manage more than 90 million registered addresses, up nearly 88% from The three services grew, two in triple digits, in 2011 to more than $120 million in combined revenue. YouSendIt scored well for all use cases. It has fewer collaboration features than Box but has a greater emphasis on providing capabilities directly from the PC or Mac without shifting to its cloud service. It had the highest scores in the group for security and file transfer. Filing Information: May 2012, IDC #234770, Volume: 1 BuyerPulse Analysis: Business Interaction Network Software: Customer Needs and Strategies

2 I N T H I S S T U D Y This study looks at the cloud file sharing and collaboration services market and evaluates the capabilities of three leading providers Box, Dropbox, and YouSendIt. We assess the capabilities overall and compare results in a departmental and enterprise use case. This market is changing rapidly, with many vendors entering the market. The document does not cover all of the offerings but provides an approach to evaluation that can be applied across the market for enterprises planning to purchase these services, for vendors determining how to partner with CFSC services providers, and for competing vendors. We also look at how this market is evolving with the entrance and pending entrance of new competitors. S I T U A T I O N O V E R V I E W Cloud file sharing and collaboration services are becoming modern file systems for knowledge workers, supporting common characteristics of knowledge worker behaviors: Work anywhere Heavy use of social networking to perform job Dependency on Internet and always being connected Integrate personal and work life, with porous separations between the two Use a mix of personal and enterprise-owned devices to perform job Access files from a broad selection of device-specific and cloud applications Collaborate inside and outside the enterprise with virtual teams assembled based on skills and availability Work on projects that cover a spectrum of confidentiality requirements Any product supporting today's knowledge worker cuts across a multitude of technologies, and CFSC services are no exception. Embedded content management, managed file transfer, collaboration, security, integration, and mobile capabilities make it difficult to map these offerings into any one existing market. CFSC services allow workers to share files across their devices and with other people. Most services require users to move files to a central cloud hosting facility offered as a service. They also provide a mechanism for the subscriber to grant access to folders and files to other people. And they provide access to these files across common devices, such as a PC, Mac, smartphone, and tablet computer. Depending on the capabilities of the offerings, CFSC services also support various options associated with jointly editing and creating new versions of content, approving content, digitally signing content, and sending links to the content to third parties. 2 # IDC

3 CFSC must securely and accurately deliver files and folders to the vendor's cloud host service. It also must be able to provide secure and reliable access and synchronization to the devices of authorized users. It is common for knowledge workers to develop multimedia content. That means CFSC services also must be able to deliver files of sizes measured in gigabytes. At this point, these services don't necessarily cut down on network capacity as users request files. But they can cut down on the total storage capacity of individual files spread across a work ecosystem as well as reduce the storage and people costs of keeping track of current and out-of-date versions of content that are stored across multiple systems. In the past, content was shared by delivering the file over the network or by copying onto a variety of nonnetworked devices. With CFSC services, instead of users requesting copies of content, they ask for access to the content. This is similar to enterprise use of shared drives but much simpler. More importantly, these services move work beyond the firewall, aligning with distributed, virtual teams. CFSC services are disruptive to some markets. For example, the people-centric segment of managed file transfer software is impacted by these services. In response, many of the vendors are evolving their core file transfer offerings to extend to private and public CFSC services. To better understand CFSC service functionality, we evaluated services from three vendors Box, Dropbox, and YouSendIt. We selected this group because of their: Fast growth in new users and a large number of users. As Table 1 shows, Box and Dropbox doubled their number of registered users from first quarter 2011 to first quarter And YouSendIt grew its number by 66.7% over the same period. Rapid 2011 revenue growth. We estimate that each of these services generated $40 million to $45 million in revenue in 2011, with growth ranging from 60% for YouSendIt to triple digits for Box and Dropbox. Range of offerings, including an enterprise strategy. Each vendor aggressively pursues product strategies that target different classes of users ranging from consumer to enterprise. YouSendIt and Box both have a much larger strategic emphasis on enterprises compared with Dropbox. However, Dropbox announced a business offering in Diversity of vision. Each of the products we assessed represents a different facet of the CFSC market. Box differentiates on collaboration and content management; YouSendIt differentiates on expanding and integrating its desktop sync, clean file transfer, and delivery; and Dropbox differentiates on fastest and leanest sync, free automated device sync, and building out a virally growing subscriber base built on subscriber-to-subscriber recommendations. However, over the past two years, each of these vendors has released new versions of their products that pit feature sets against each other IDC #

4 This document focuses on enterprise use of CFSC services. Features are classified and compared in the sections that follow. Additionally, because of differences in strategy and how offerings are packaged, we built a comparison model for use in a department or enterprise setting. T A B L E 1 N u m b e r o f R e g i s t e r e d U s e r s b y V e n d o r, 1 Q Q 1 2 ( M ) Vendor Launched 1Q09 1Q10 1Q11 1Q12 Box 2005 NA Dropbox 2008 NA NA YouSendIt Source: IDC, 2012 C o m p a r i s o n o f C l o u d F i l e S h a r i n g a n d C o l l a b o r a t i o n S e r v i c e s C a p a b i l i t i e s To look at overall functionality of CFSC services, we assessed Box, Dropbox, and YouSendIt to identify, organize, compare, and test features to determine what core capabilities were offered and which ones aligned the best with common use cases. For the overall assessment presented in this section, we looked at each vendor's enterprise service. For the use cases in the Evaluation of Services by Use Case section, we looked at the services offered to support each use case. Organizationally, we clustered features into the following six major categories: Access and file management features File transfer features Sharing and collaboration features Security features Administrative and reporting features Integration and interoperability features Each of these vendors has rapid release cycles, which means that new capabilities appear regularly. Table 2 provides the results of an evaluation of YouSendIt compared with the average number of features. These were identified features officially released through first quarter Overall, we identified and mapped 135 features into this model. Each category and subcategory is built on a 100-point scale. 4 # IDC

5 This neutralizes the difference in categories where there may be many features in one and not as many in another, yet both are important. This model in Table 2 also is a supply-side view of capabilities in that we look at features from the perspective of the service offerings without judging the importance of one feature compared with another. A usage scenario is presented below that weighs the importance of features for departmental or enterprise use. T A B L E 2 C o m p a r i s o n o f C l o u d F i l e S h a r i n g a n d C o l l a b o r a t i o n S e r v i c e s C a p a b i l i t i e s Score (%) Number of Features YouSendIt Workstream Enterprise Average Access and file management File transfer Sharing and collaboration Security Administrative and reporting Integration and interoperability Total Note: Features assessed in each category are unweighted. Vendors received a 1 if they had a feature and 0 if not. Scores in each category and overall were normalized to a 100-point scale. Source: IDC, April 2012 Access and File Management Features CFSC services serve as a common point of access for users across their devices, which include desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. When users upload their files to the cloud, the files become accessible across these devices. File management features include the basic file operations. In addition, CFSC services allow users to manage their files at their endpoints. Users can upload a file to the cloud from their smartphone, delete a file in the cloud from their desktop, move a file into a different folder from their browser, and so on. File Transfer Features File transfer is the movement of a file from one endpoint to another via a network. With CFSC, the file is uploaded and hosted on the cloud service. Based on file permissions, users are able to download to their specified endpoint. Announcement of 2012 IDC #

6 file or folder availability is made through an notification or a pop-up in the user's taskbar. is still the primary tool workers use to share files with others. This puts an unnecessary burden on systems when s include people who do not need to download the attachment. is also problematic when there is a need to transfer files that exceed attachment size limits, such as videos and CAD/CAM documents, or when users want to transfer a file folder. Enterprises often have to invest heavily in storage and bandwidth to keep up with the volume of files that are transferred via on a daily basis. Sharing and Collaboration Features CFSC services support ad hoc, content-oriented collaboration by allowing users to share files, providing common file repositories and workspaces for projects and, in some cases, tracking progress and deadlines. Collaboration can be difficult when workers are in different locations, don't share the same set of files, and are limited to point-to-point communication via phone and . CFSC services have addressed these issues by allowing users to send notes to each other as well as comment on and tag files. Using these features, workers can keep better track of ideas, feedbacks, revisions, and follow-up tasks. Security Features Security features have been a focal point of product strategies for all three vendors. IDC surveys covering cloud adoption continue to find security to be a top reason not to adopt public cloud services. That means cloud vendors continue to improve their services to allay concerns around intrusion prevention and information leaks. At this stage, the security features of CFSC services are optimized around preventing common security violations in support of sharing and collaborating on public or semiprivate content and not for highly secure content, defined by government regulations and internal controls. Enterprises will need to determine what types of content can be shared using CFSC services. For example, creating a shared folder to work on an acquisition is probably not a good thing to do as would be working collaboratively across the supply chain on a product plan or manufacturing design of a major new product or product upgrade. Administrative and Reporting Features Administrative features allow users to change and manage the features of their tools. Individuals can see how much of their cloud storage quota they've used, manage alerts, maintain contact lists, and view a log of account activity. Group administrators can manage account provisioning, set policies, and access statistics. Integration and Interoperability Features Many CFSC services have emphasized partnerships and integration with third-party applications to add value to their offerings or to support enterprise requirements. Because access to files is so pervasive across an enterprise and within an 6 # IDC

7 ecosystem, integration and interoperability is an important category. Related to this is the third-party certification strategy of the vendor. E v a l u a t i o n o f S e r v i c e s b y U s e C a s e Structured Enterprise Use This use case is an enterprise that chose to standardize on a CFSC service to support a variety of activities, including: Access for individuals workers to sync files across their devices to support a mobile and flexible workforce. The enterprise's goal was to have less than 0.1% of annual knowledge worker downtime due to hardware failures while also reducing overtime emergencies for the IT organization. Work teams across the enterprise use their CFSC service to collaborate inside the enterprise and with contractors and third-party services firms to support the creation, revision, and design of assets, whether the company Web site, content used for marketing and sales, development of plans, and so forth. The selection of the CFSC service was part of the enterprise's newly embraced cloud-first strategy. The enterprise also adopted a cloud-based CRM and made a decision to integrate the two services, managing the sales activities in the CRM service and managing the content used to support marketing and sales in the CFSC service. To implement the CFSC service, IT was charged with integrating with the enterprise's directory services and with the CRM service. An administrator was named from the business side to coordinate with IT and with the business units, and a team was formed to develop policies on the type of content that can and cannot be stored in the CFSC service in support of regulations and confidentiality requirements. The CRM team worked with the CFSC team and business users to design a structured folder system for use with the CRM. The CRM folder system involved the design of folders that would allow authorized users inside and outside the enterprise to create, revise, approve, and publish into folders as content was developed or changed, and sharing privileges were assigned based on the folder and folder topic. Users from the CRM system are able to select current content from the designated folders and are able to send to their prospects and customers as links and attachments. Each sales team was provided with a folder for collaborating to customize existing and create new content, and they can invite others to participate in the development of the new content such as a response to an RFI or a sales presentation. Members of the team can revise content, post comments in a discussion thread, and assign tasks. The team's folders are accessible from both the CFSC service and the CRM service IDC #

8 In this scenario, most of the features of a CFSC service described in the previous sections are required. Table 3 compares YouSendIt's score with the average of the other services and total possible score. T A B L E 3 C o m p a r i s o n o f C F S C S e r v i c e s : S t r u c t u r e d E n t e r p r i s e o r D e p a r t m e n t a l U s e C a s e Score (%) Number of Features Total Possible Score YouSendIt Workstream Enterprise Average Access and file management File transfer Sharing and collaboration Administrative and reporting Security Integration and interoperability Total Source: IDC, April 2012 V e n d o r S n a p s h o t : Y o u S e n d I t YouSendIt, based in Campbell, California, was founded in 2003 by Khalid Shaikh, Amir Shaikh, and Ranjith Kumaran. The company has raised $48.7 million over five rounds of fundraising. In first quarter 2012, YouSendIt had 500,000 paid subscribers and 30 million registered users in 193 countries. YouSendIt grew an estimated 61% to $40 million in YouSendIt's original value proposition was to overcome the file size limitations of attachments and the complexity of sending large files using FTP by providing a service that would let users easily send large files to each other. The company entered the file sharing market in mid-2011 with the announcement of a portfolio of new services around file synchronization and collaboration as well as cloud storage and backup. In first quarter 2012, YouSendIt rebranded its enterprise service under the name Workstream by YouSendIt and announced new security features that included domain blacklisting and white listing and mobile security policies, as well as integration with Active Directory for batch deployment. 8 # IDC

9 YouSendIt has tiered services and pricing: YouSendIt Lite is free for up to 2GB of storage, a 50MB maximum file size, and five digital signatures. This plan includes the ability to deliver files to set up folders and share files and folders with others. YouSendIt Pro is priced at $100 per year per user for up to 5GB of storage, a 2GB maximum file size, and 10 digital signatures. This plan includes the ability to set up folders and share files and folders with others. It also includes additional security features. YouSendIt Pro Plus is priced at $150 a year per user for unlimited storage and digital signatures and a 2GB maximum file size. The plan also includes file and folder sharing as well as different security and tracking options and phone support. Workstream Professional Edition has a minimum of five users and is priced at $180 per year per user. Included are unlimited storage and most of the features evaluated previously, except for capabilities related to integration. Workstream Enterprise Edition has the full set of capabilities plus the integration capabilities. Pricing is roughly $300 per user per year. Evaluation of Capabilities Figure 1 shows Workstream enterprise capabilities compared with the average for the vendors. Workstream outperformed in its file transfer capabilities and in its security and generally performed on par in the other categories. Its preestablished integration is slightly behind the market, primarily because most of its efforts have been in building connections and interoperability from its desktop sync application with useroriented enterprise applications. Workstream is particularly strong where enterprises have a need for point-to-point file transfer in combination with file sharing. Its desktop sync application has the most advanced capabilities, providing syncing and sharing without the need to establish permissions from YouSendIt cloud IDC #

10 F I G U R E 1 W o r k s t r e a m E n t e r p r i s e C a p a b i l i t i e s C o m p a r e d w i t h A v e r a g e Access & File Management Integration File Transfer Management Sharing & Collaboration Security YouSendIt Average Source: IDC, 2012 Differentiatin g Streng th s Best security, particularly with the files available from YouSendIt's mobile apps Desktop sync capabilities Integration with Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint Ability to deliver files direct to named user in combination with sharing Servi ce Challen ges It is easy to use as a cloud file system, but there is a need to accelerate efforts to build an ecosystem of YouSendIt-compatible cloud and on-premise applications. Branding is confusing. YouSendIt was a clear brand for file delivery but not as clear for file sharing. Workstream is a clear brand name that provides YouSendIt with a present and future. But it needs to complete the brand transition, which, if successful, could lead to a name change for the company. Feature High li ghts F i l e T r a n s f e r F e a t u r e s Table 4 shows the results of a comparison of CFSC service file transfer capabilities across the offerings evaluated. Features are organized into the following categories: Point-to-point delivery File synchronization 10 # IDC

11 Upload and download T A B L E 4 C o m p a r i s o n o f F i l e T r a n s f e r C a p a b i l i t i e s Score (%) Number of Features Box Enterprise Dropbox Teams YouSendIt Workstream Enterprise Average Point-to-point delivery File synchronization Upload and download Total Note: Features assessed in each category are unweighted. Vendors received a 1 if they had a feature and 0 if not. Scores in each category and overall were normalized to a 100-point scale. Source: IDC, April 2012 P o i n t - t o - P o i n t D e l i v e r y Point-to-point delivery is the transfer of a file from one computer to another. In the past, businesses have commonly used attachments, FTP servers, MFT solutions, USB sticks, and FedEx to deliver files from one point to another. CFSC services provide viable alternatives for point-to-point delivery in both two-step and one-step flavors. Two-step delivery requires that a user first upload his/her file to the cloud, then acquire and a hosted link to the file to his/her desired recipient. One-step pointto-point delivery allows the user to send a link to the hosted file directly from his/her desktop or browser without uploading the file first. Box and Dropbox provide two-step delivery, while YouSendIt's mechanism is one step. S e c u r i t y F e a t u r e s Table 5 shows the results of a comparison of CFSC service security capabilities across the offerings evaluated. Features are organized into the following categories: Administrative policy-level controls Delivery and sharing verification Content security Mobile security 2012 IDC #

12 T A B L E 5 C o m p a r i s o n o f S e c u r i t y C a p a b i l i t i e s Score (%) Number of Features Box Enterprise Dropbox Teams YouSendIt Workstream Enterprise Average Delivery and sharing verification Content security Mobile security Administrative policy-level controls Total Note: Features assessed in each category are unweighted. Vendors received a 1 if they had a feature and 0 if not. Scores in each category and overall were normalized to a 100-point scale. Source: IDC, April 2012 R e p o r t i n g F e a t u r e s Administrators need to be able to see reports on account activity, including the files users share with others and files that users and external parties download. Users may also want to see the status of content access by authorized users. Basic reporting of: date modified, file version log, access log, user activity log, and support of export are common across the three services. Figure 2 shows an example of the YouSendIt tracking. While the basic reporting is fairly standard across the three CFSC services, there is much wider variance in usage statistics offered as well as logging. 12 # IDC

13 F I G U R E 2 Y o u S e n d I t T r a c k i n g Source: YouSendIt, 2012 Evaluation by Use Case As Figure 3 illustrates, Workstream performed adequately across each use case. It does not have as many collaborative features as Box, which it most directly competes with. However, its better desktop sync capabilities provide advantages that allow users to remain in their core workspace without jumping to the cloud service. This can be more productive to the types of activities that require a good portion of time creating and revising content. F I G U R E 3 Y o u S e n d I t C a p a b i l i t i e s U s e C a s e Informal Team Overall Structured Enterprise Personal YouSendIt Average Source: IDC, IDC #

14 Recommendations YouSendIt is a strong option for enterprises with mixed point-to-point file transfer and file sharing needs. Its desktop sync capabilities and overall ability to integrate make it highly usable for work teams and for larger enterprise deployments. The CFSC services market has many entrants, with continuing entries by new competitors. YouSendIt will likely need to raise more capital and continue investing in both feature development and business development to carve out its place in this market. Investing in partnerships and a broader ecosystem are critical at this stage. To prepare for the future waves of competitive offerings, YouSendIt may want to consider supporting ultrasecure use cases, including direct point-to-point file delivery without the need for files to rest on its cloud service. F U T U R E O U T L O O K CFSC services play an important technical role in the cloud and a collaborative role in the extended enterprises. Our evaluation of CFSC services provides a structure to evaluate these services, whether you are looking at one of the three services we assessed or others that you are also in the process of evaluating. As with any purchase, it is important to understand the uses cases and align capabilities with those use cases to determine the best fit. Feedback from knowledge workers is critical in this evaluation. Because this is a new category, users are developing unexpected and innovative use cases. For enterprises building a justification for a CFSC service, there are several key factors to take into consideration: Business benefit of keeping knowledge workers productive even when their core PC or Mac is not working Value of allowing workers to work from anywhere without spending time manually preparing files for use at home Labor and storage costs of maintaining multiple versions of files across different systems, particularly for enterprises with a cloud-first strategy Reduced pressure on IT to approve outsider access to internal systems Savings in systems scale-out and storage costs by removing file attachments It is also important to be pragmatic about security. Workers are exercising judgment every day to balance their need to do their jobs with the required levels of confidentiality. In most knowledge worker centric use cases, the security levels offered by CFSC services are adequate for outside the enterprise collaboration and even better than the use of # IDC

15 If a team is collaborating on marketing and advertising to launch a new financial service, for example, this does not have the same level of regulation and confidentiality required for online banking. In evaluating, it is important to align security requirements with the types of content that are being developed and managed in a CFSC service. E S S E N T I A L G U I D A N C E CFSC services play an important technical role in the cloud and a collaborative role in the extended enterprise. Our evaluation of CFSC services provides a structure to evaluate these services, whether you are looking at one of the three services we assessed or others that you are also in the process of evaluating. As with any purchase, it is important to understand the use cases and align capabilities with them to determine best fit. Feedback from knowledge workers is critical in this evaluation. Because this is a new category, users are developing unexpected and innovative use cases. For enterprises building a justification for a CFSC service, there are several key factors to take into consideration: Business benefit of keeping knowledge workers productive even when their core PC or Mac is not working Value of allowing workers to work from anywhere without spending time manually preparing files for use at home Labor and storage costs of maintaining multiple versions of files across different systems, particularly for enterprises with a cloud-first strategy Reduced pressure on IT to approve outsider access to internal systems Savings in systems scale-out and storage costs by removing file attachments It is also important to be pragmatic about security. Workers are exercising judgment every day to balance their need to do their jobs with the required levels of confidentiality. In most knowledge worker centric use cases, the security levels offered by CFSC services are adequate for outside the enterprise collaboration and even better than the use of . If a team is collaborating on marketing and advertising to launch a new financial service, for example, this does not have the same level of regulation and confidentiality required for online banking. In evaluating, it is important to align security requirements with the types of content that are being developed and managed in a CFSC service IDC #

16 C o p y r i g h t N o t i c e This IDC research document was published as part of an IDC continuous intelligence service, providing written research, analyst interactions, telebriefings, and conferences. Visit to learn more about IDC subscription and consulting services. To view a list of IDC offices worldwide, visit Please contact the IDC Hotline at , ext (or ) or sales@idc.com for information on applying the price of this document toward the purchase of an IDC service or for information on additional copies or Web rights. Copyright 2012 IDC. Reproduction is forbidden unless authorized. All rights reserved. 16 # IDC