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Good interview but i'm looking for ways to short Box.net.  I left lots of sticky notes and highlights on this page - all of which are under the Visual Document list since i didn't have a Cloud Productivity list going.  I spend quite a bit of time studying Box.net, DropBox and a ton of other early Cloud sync-share-store operations while doing research for the Sursen SurDocs product.  Also MS-Live/Office/SkyDrive and Google Docs Collaboration.  No one has a good bead on a Cloud Productivity Platform yet.  But Microsoft and Google clearly know what the game is.  They even have a plan on how to get there.  Box.net, on the other hand is totally clueless.  What are these investors thinking?

"Venture capital (VC) firms will go to great lengths to convince the most promising tech founders to accept their deals so they can get their hands on that all-important slice of equity. Some of them will offer introductions to important people in their network, while others will offer hardcore engineering support and a cool place to work. The very best advice, swanky dinners, and even the odd CEO retreat are also up for grabs if you sign a term sheet with us, they might say. But Vineet Jain, CEO and cofounder of cloud storage firm Egnyte, which has raised $62 million (£43 million), believes many VCs overpromise. Speaking to Business Insider by phone on Tuesday, Jain said: "Most VC firms say we give you more than money. That's complete hogwash." Egnyte, which competes with Box and Dropbox, has been backed by Google Ventures, the venture capital arm of Google, and Kleiner Perkins, a well-known Silicon Valley investor with billions at its disposal. Jain, whose company is based over the road from Google in Mountain View, was quick to say that Google Ventures is unlike many other venture capital companies. "They were instrumental to us," he said, adding that the firm helped Egnyte to improve its web user interface and assisted with the company's marketing efforts. Egnyte has also integrated its cloud storage platform - used by 15,000 companies - with Google's own cloud platform, Google Drive. Unlike Box and Dropbox, who have raised $558 million (£385 million) and $1.1 billion (£760 million) respectively, Egnyte is on target to be cash flow positive by the third quarter of this year. "I refused to have a free version of Egnyte," said Jain. "Look at where I am today.""

"Back in Microsoft's early days, Bill Gates and Paul Allen devised the mission statement that became the formula for their company's success: "A computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software." Fast-forward a few decades and the playing field has changed. For starters, the notion that we can get by with just one computer at home and one at the office is downright quaint in 2016. Then there's that word software, which brings up images of shrink-wrapped retail packages and CD jewel boxes. Today, most modern development is aimed at creating apps that are lightweight and easily available for modern mobile platforms. And even traditional software is morphing into services, managed in the cloud and available from just about anywhere with Internet access. Microsoft Azure services are gradually replacing on-premises servers, and Office 365 subscriptions are eating into the market for perpetual Office licenses. Put it all together, and I suggest it's time for Satya Nadella's Microsoft to adopt a new mission statement: "A connected world, filled with intelligent devices running Microsoft services and apps." The company's latest financial results suggest that Microsoft is living up to that mission statement. The Intelligent Cloud segment, which combines traditional server products and cloud services like Microsoft Azure, is top dog in Redmond. In the first half of fiscal 2016, Microsoft's combined commercial cloud businesses grew 70 percent compared to the previous year, and that growth rate shows no signs of stopping. To get to that point, Microsoft had to get rid of the mindset that Windows was its most important product. And, indeed, that's happening already. Aaron Levie, CEO of Box and a Silicon Valley veteran, told me recently that he thinks Microsoft has mastered the art of "openness." The result is a series of moves that would have been unthinkable even five years ago, with a steady stream of apps for iOS and Android, including Office 365 rele

"Egnyte has been vying with the likes of Dropbox and Box for some time already in the cloud-storage arena, but on Tuesday it jumped on board the "mobile-first" train with a newly revamped version of its enterprise-focused app suite that's aimed squarely at mobile business users. State of the CIO 2015 More than 500 top IT leaders responded to our online survey to help us gauge the state of the READ NOW Now running on the Apple Watch and Windows tablets as well as Android, iOS and other Windows platforms, the new suite of apps is designed to let enterprise users on virtually any mobile device access, manage and share online and offline data from both cloud and on-premises storage. In addition to the expanded mobile-platform coverage, Egynte's new suite includes several new features, including the ability to organize files marked for offline access in a centralized view, thereby making it easier to coordinate offline and online content."

"he Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing (EFSS) marketplace is ripe for disruption, but probably not via a huge technological breakthrough of some sort. EFSS options are maturing quickly and it's becoming quite commoditized. Consider that, according to Gartner, there are more than 140 vendors in the space - and that's too many. Sixteen of them meet the criteria for Gartner's Magic Quadrant (MQ) for EFSS. That's probably more than the market needs, but it's likely to be a problem that solves itself. Industry Consolidation Monica Basso, Charles Smulders and Jeffrey Mann, who researched and wrote the Gartner report, expect less than 10 percent of today's stand-alone EFSS offerings will exist by 2018. To be frank, not every vendor in the MQ wants to be classified as an EFSS player. Alastair Mitchell of Huddle has told me that he thinks of EFSS as an "albatross" and doesn't want his company to be known for "shuffling files back and forth." More on that in our next article. Gartner defines EFSS as a "range of on-premises or cloud-based capabilities that enables individuals to synchronize and share documents, photos, videos and files across mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets and PCs." The analysts noted that "sharing" can take place between coworkers, suppliers, customers and others, mobile devices and as content exchange between apps. "Security and collaboration support are critical aspects for enterprises to adopt EFSS," they wrote. The Gartner analysts also wrote that beyond standard EFSS functionalities, the vendors they selected might offer additional features around mobility, security, administration and management, back-end server integration via connectors to corporate servers (for example, SharePoint) and cloud services, content manipulation, collaboration and more. Software EFSS products may or may not have one main repository. Some products integrate with existing third-party repositories that are deploy

"In recent weeks, email and other collaboration and workflow tools are being re-imagined with new interfaces, social components, integrated video conferencing and easy swipes to dismiss messages. To wit: IBM launched  its Verse effort with a snazzy interface that combines, social, email, analytics and mobile nicely. Google floated Inbox , an app designed to help you manage your email better. For the most part, it's effective. Cisco's Project Squared is an app that runs on its collaboration cloud and integrates video conferencing, messaging and other tools. Facebook is pondering Facebook at Work with a news feed and doc sharing. We could go on, but the list of tech vendors trying to deliver a workflow leapfrog is long. And we're not even counting efforts by Workday, Salesforce and others to include collaboration with core business functions. WHAT'S HOT ON ZDNET Windows 10: You've got questions, I've got answers Windows 10 ​How to use Google's new My Account, the one-stop control center for all of its services Security Apple Watch or Android Wear? Neither. Why smartwatches aren't ready for prime time Mobility The tech of Computex 2015 in pictures Hardware Here's where all these efforts fall flat: These products are all pitched as magic bullets to simplify your work life, but in reality are just another item to sell or keep current customers in the fold. Another reality: These applications are trying to tackle human issues with collaboration and communications. Tech isn't going to fix those communication quirks or cure humans' need to try and keep up. We don't need another tool. We need less of them. We don't need another app to aggregate tech functions. We need to simplify tech functions starting with a bunch of check boxes marked delete. We don't need technology to help us communicate. We need to be taught how to communicate. And we sure don't need more messaging. We need to turn our damn phones off so maybe we can really get some work done or look up a

"The Best of Microsoft Productivity If you're like me when you work, you want to really get things done. We need to be able to seamlessly move between our work and personal needs. Building on our success of more than 200 million devices running Windows 10, the Lumia 650 puts Microsoft's smooth, responsive and most productive OS in your pocket. Our business customers continue to send great feedback on Windows 10 and are compelled by the mobility of the Windows experience across devices. Lumia 650 runs the latest Microsoft Office apps right out of the box, allowing you to create and edit documents on-the-go and sync them to the cloud via OneDrive. It's also perfect for picking up on email and an important presentation during your commute. And with Cortana, your very own personal assistant, you're always organized and prepared for the day ahead."

"What is Firepad? Firepad is an open source real-time collaborative text editor. It provides true collaborative editing, complete with intelligent operational transform-based merging and conflict resolution. Some features include: Cursor position synchronization Undo & redo Text highlighting User attribution Presence detection Version checkpointing What can I do with Firepad? You can build any application that requires collaborative editing of text documents. Firepad supports both rich text and code editing out-of-the-box, and it's easy to extend for other use cases. How is Firepad different than other collaborative text editors? Most collaborative text editors require special code to run on a server, making them impractical to use if you're not already using the right server stack. Firepad has no server dependencies and instead relies on the Firebase Realtime Database for real-time data synchronization. This means that it's easy to add Firepad to any application, even static websites. All you need to do is drop in the JavaScript files and go."

"Google doesn't just offer its own web-based productivity apps, but it also offers a service for business users who want to use Google as an identity provider for accessing other online services using the widely used SAML standard. Today, Google is adding a few new options to this program, which now includes a number of Google competitors. Among the 14 new pre-configured options are the likes of Microsoft Office 365, Facebook at Work, New Relic, Concur, Box, Tableau, HipChat and Slack."

"As CIOs look for better value from their enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, they're finding more cost effective ways of operating from cloud based file storage vendors. Box, Google Drive, AWS and others provide the same capabilities offered by expensive ECM solutions. In this article, ECM refers to a solution that stores unstructured data, such as documents, images, and plain text. Traditional ECM solutions are no longer cost competitive and do not provide any additional value over the simple indexing, storage and retrieval capabilities. Shifting ECM management of infrastructure, maintenance and operations to cloud based file storage vendors seems unavoidable to stay cost competitive."

"Facebook at Work - the enterprise version of Facebook that lets businesses build their own secure social networks - has racked up over 60,000 companies on a waiting list while still in closed beta. And as it gears up for a full global launch and new features like an app platform later this year, Facebook is announcing its newest big customer. As of today, Telenor, the carrier based out of Norway with operations in some 13 countries covering 203 million people, is turning on Facebook for 36,000 employees globally."

"Considering Salesforce is sitting on top of $1.9 billion in cash, the amount they spent on venture capital is still pretty small. The $145 million cash they invested last quarter is only a fraction of the $731 million it generated in operating cash flow, too. But the fact that Salesforce is increasingly looking for ways to find the next future growth engine through these investments sends a positive sign to the market, Stifel's Rodericks says, especially as Salesforce becomes a more mature company. "They're sitting on a ton of money on their balance sheet, so to a certain degree, investors would like to see them make these strategic investments in companies around this space," Roderick said. And that could potentially lead to more acquisitions, he noted, as Salesforce Ventures has been more active on the buy side too lately. It acquired sales intelligence software RelateIQ for $390 million last year, after spending $2.5 billion on marketing software ExactTarget two years ago. "This certainly gives them more visibility in the companies that they might look at as partners or potential acquisitions down the road," he said. We should be able to get to find out more about it on Thursday, when Salesforce reports its second quarter earnings. Analyst estimates are pretty much in line with Salesforce's forecasts at $1.6 billion in revenue for an EPS of $0.18."

"As reviewed by Tom's IT Pro, Egnyte's enterprise file sync solution has three aspects: Cloud File Server,  Storage Sync and Storage Connect. The alliance/partnership announcements further demonstrate Egnyte's serious intent to compete for the higher-value enterprise market, with unique capabilities fostering expansion beyond commodity-based storage into a hybrid data access platform as communicated by Egnyte's CEO, Vineet Jain."

"Microsoft has held its dominance in the software market in part because it is the go-to provider for many business solutions. Word, Excel and Powerpoint are essential pieces of software across almost any industry, whether they are used for presentations and memos or tracking expenses and marketing products. However, enterprise apps from competitors are growing in popularity, according to a new report from Okta, with apps and services filling gaps left by Microsoft's products. That doesn't mean Microsoft is losing ground, though. In fact, Okta found that Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 use overlaps at more than 40 percent of companies."