EMC World 2011: EMC teams up with Box to offer iPhone and Android mobile content management

LAS VEGAS: EMC has partnered with enterprise file-sharing firm Box in a move that will allow customers to access and manage content stored on EMC's Documentum platform via iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

Enterprise users simply have to download the Box mobile application and can then access and modify files. Any changes are automatically synchronised to EMC's on-premise Documentum repository.

Tony Lock, programme director at analyst firm Freeform Dynamics, welcomed the partnership, noting that it will help enterprises deal with the difficult task of managing content.

"The mobility of users throughout the business, and the expanding array of devices used to access and manipulate documents, is likely to ensure that the extension of content management to such systems will be adopted rapidly," he told V3.co.uk.

"EMC's challenge is to support a very broad portfolio of devices, not just one or two perceived leaders."

Box already offers 5GB of free online space for personal use, and up to 500GB for $15 a month. The firm also guarantees 99.9 per cent up-time, and offers Secure Sockets Layer encryption.

EMC also unveiled the latest version of its Ionix Server Manager software, which features 'Cloud to Ground' Root Cause Analysis capabilities.

Ionix Server Manager 3.0 eliminates the need for enterprises to deploy different tools to analyse physical and virtual infrastructures, EMC said.

Key features include the ability to monitor the health of server clusters, including Microsoft Cluster Services, Symantec Veritas Cluster Server and BigIP F5 LoadBalancer servers.

Ionix Server Manager 3.0 is also able to monitor servers and determine whether they are operating at their optimum levels.

"Although tools to identify bottlenecks and points of service failure will be adopted, vendors will have to convince a sceptical IT professional community that they are effective and, more importantly, usable without adding to the workloads," Lock said.