Online storage and collaboration company Box has upgraded its apps for Android phones and tablets. They have new features such as multiple-file uploads, threaded comments on any file and the ability to invite other people into a folder. And to celebrate, it’s giving Android users 50GB of free space in the cloud–for free, forever.
The 50GB allotment is 10 times Box’s standard free offering of 5GB, and will be automatically provided to anyone who logs into Box from one of the new Android apps by March 23rd. It’s similar to a 50GB offer that the company made to iOS users last October. And once you’ve signed in via Android to claim your space, it’s available on every platform Box supports.
The free accounts are fairly spartan–Box saves features such as file syncing for paying customers–but if all you want is a great big online hard drive for your stuff, this is a deal.
Why is Box willing to give away 50GB accounts when Dropbox’s free accounts offer 2GB and SugarSync’s have 5GB? A Box representative told me that it’s because its business model is focused on getting large corporate customers to pay for Box for lots of staffers all at once. The freebie accounts exist only to spread the word about the service–and so the company is as happy giving away 50GB of space to a single user as it would be charging for it.