Box Explores Sale Amid Pressure from Starboard

U.S. cloud services provide Box is exploring a sale amid pressure from hedge fund Starboard Value over its stock performance, Reuters citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: Redwood City, California-based Box has discussed a potential deal with interested buyers, including other companies and private equity firms, the sources said, cautioning that no sale of the company is certain. Reuters reported last month that Starboard was preparing to launch a board challenge against Box unless it took steps to boost value for shareholders. It has privately expressed disappointment that the company has failed to capitalize on the work-from-home trend during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many of its cloud computing peers have done.

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[Luthair]

They aren't venture capitalists as the company is public. Further, its not unreasonable that shareholders impact the strategy of the company - they are the owners.

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[jonathantn]

Step 1: perform risky gain of function experiments in your lab. Step 2: screw up containment and release into the wild

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[ITRambo]

With vaccinations rates quickly approaching 50% in the us, by the end of Spring 2021, your comment about a new highly deadly variant that magically appears seems a bit off base.

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[drinkypoo]

You are assuming that the vaccine will provide protection against a more harmful new strain, which is as yet unfounded.

Also, we may not get far past 50% because so many people think vaccination is a bad idea.

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[shanen]

Just so, and I didn't even mention the non-accidental mutation threat.

However on reflection I should have said more about the relationship to the story. All stock market speculation should have been turned off for now. It's really the flip side of people losing their family restaurants and other small businesses for no fault of their own. Right now the entire point of the casino known as Wall Street can be reduced to the question "How will Covid-19 splash this company?" Or in trade-off terms, "More or less

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[fustakrakich]

All stock market speculation should have been turned off for now.

Too bad I can't agree with you without your bot jumping in

Public masturbation of 1673220

[shanen]

Z^-1

May the Slashdot admins smite the unholy bot!

[fustakrakich]

We can dream.. an impossible dream...

Public masturbation of 1673220

[shanen]

Z^-2

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

[fustakrakich]

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.

Public masturbation of 1673220

[shanen]

Z^-3

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[shanen]

Hmm... I can't decide if that's censorship troll moderation or justified. I started linking the first comment to the story and then got distracted or ran out of time, so if I ever had a mod point to give I might have gone that way, too... Omen of a bad day dawning? Anyway, there's a corrective comment in the thread, so what the hey. At least I got some nice naan out of it? (When life hands you a lemon, go get an Indian curry lunch?) [Definitely off topic now, unless perhaps it turns out the vulture investor

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[ranton]

[Hedge Fund demanding blood] from a company that while successful was not the runaway success that they had bet their investment on.

This doesn't seem to be the case here. It is a public company, so Starboard Value could simply sell their stock if they wish to. But this hedge fund has a history of activist campaigns for over a dozen companies it took a large position on. Starboard Value still feels there is more value in Box than the company has currently realized, but new ownership may be necessary to capitalize on it.

This is what investors should be doing from my point of view. Being actual owners instead of just passive investors.

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[chill]

But are they trying to maximize short-term return over the long term stability and viability of Box. As a customer of Box, I'm not interested in some fucking rich boys trying to squeeze every penny out of a company, then taking their profit and leaving a failing husk.

Fuck them and their 8 clients [whalewisdom.com].

My box account came with my blackberry Q10

[williamyf]

that was the year 2013, and I never used it for anything. The free tier is very generous with 10GB.

But I need two hands to count my Cloud Drives. AND Box does not offer anything compelling to set themselves appart, at least for me...

And from the looks of the article, not to anyone else...

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[Luthair]

I think Box (and Dropbox, etc.) all fundamentally have the issue that they don't have the scale of a Microsoft or Google or Amazon, so they aren't as cost-effective if they build their own data centers but alternatively building on a cloud isn't as cost-effective as owning it. Microsoft and Google can also offer tighter integration with other products they own.

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[Rosco P. Coltrane]

On the other hand, if you're after a cloud solution, not being Microsoft, Google or Amazon can be seen as an added value. As in, you don't give all your data to big data companies that are best known for their insatiable appetite for private data.

Of course, the little guys monetize your data too, but they should market themselves as alternatives to big data screwover.

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[LostMyAccount]

The problem with these cloud storage providers is they feel like they have to be as light and useless in terms of features as Microsoft or Google instead of exploiting the missing features that these services don't offer or cripple.

Dropbox has been chasing Slack and Teams in a lame and halfhearted way for a while now.

I also think that they can host on cloud platforms by exploiting cost savings than ordinary cloud platform tenants can't, really, and still be profitable because they're providing cloud storage

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[tlhIngan]

I have a 50GB box account. I use it a fair bit, but that's because DropBox was stingy with its free 2GB or so. (I got it with my iPhone 4S where they had some promotion if you signed up on the app). Which isn't bad for the free tier since the 50GB tier normally costs money.

But yeah, I have Google Drive, iCloud Drive, Box, DropBox, OneDrive and probably others, though I use Box and DropBox for files I care less about if they should suddenly disappear - it's how I share files without potentially exposing my r

Bigly

[Tablizer]

It's probably not possible to compete in the cloud biz without being really big. Otherwise, you'll get bulldozed under by the likes of MS and Amazon. It's the network-effect at play, also known as the winner-take-all effect.

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[Ostracus]

HIPAA level cloud service. I'm sure there's other things they could do that the big boys couldn't, or wouldn't.

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[Tablizer]

MS often lets the little guys test such markets, and then buys them up when they prove profitable.

Oh I guess I did have a box.com account after all

[bobstreo]

Of course the userid/password combination doesn't work anymore.

It's probably been "a while" since I used it. I probably ditched it when they got rid of linux support.

and 10 gb isn't really even close enough to store things like my ebook collection.

Nevermind that their business...

[AmazingRuss]

... has nothing to do with 'work from home'. The investors feel entitled to profit from it.

Pressure from Starboard

[rossdee]

should cause it to turn to port.
Assuming its a floating box.

Short Term Gain for Long Term Pain

[theshowmecanuck]

Modern investor economics. As opposed to the older mentality of slow and steady wins the race. Don't rush for the big bucks as soon as possible and instead build a company that will deliver solid but maybe smaller point in time economic returns but delivered steadily over the long term. Like how blue chip stocks became blue chip stocks.

Just sell already

[John Napkintosh]

So public companies answer to hedge funds now?

Another valuable lesson

[Drunkulus]

It's still true: Giving stuff away for free is easy. Making money is another story.

Box or Dropbox?

[El Fantasmo]

I think their real problem is "box" in online file storage and file sharing means "Dropbox". Good luck fixing that one.