IBM, Box team up to target global data-storage market

IBM, the technology giant, and Box, a Los Altos online file-storage company, are combining their products, technology and marketing to try to smarten and streamline the work done by teams in business.

In these alliances, IBM is applying its technology to large pools of modern digital data to create services for corporate customers.

“This deal is largely about using IBM’s artificial intelligence on the corporate content in the Box service,” said Frank Gens, chief analyst for the market research firm IDC.

IBM says it will enable the online service’s international customers to store their content on IBM’s fast-expanding network of cloud data centers.

Box has partnerships with other technology companies, including one with Microsoft for gaining access to its popular Office applications online.

The strategy at Box these days is to sharply increase its roster of paying customers, especially in corporate deals with large companies including Eli Lilly and Co., General Electric and Toyota.

Today, when people ask for complete patient records, he said, they are often handed a compact disc containing digital copies of documents and medical images like X-rays.

The Box partnership, said Robert Picciano, senior vice president for data analytics at IBM, is another step in “the transformational journey we’re on.”