Cloud-Storage Company Box Struggles to Find Its (Public) Footing

Box is a cloud-based storage company that recently went public after raising enough funding to become a coveted "Billion Dollar Unicorn." Since then, however, Box may be going the way of the unicorn itself in that it has been struggling with a declining valuation and rapidly decreasing stock prices that are having a difficult time even going past its initial list price on the stock exchange.

How This Cloud-Storage Company is Struggling Against Industry Giants

Box: The Financial Picture

When representatives from Box recently reported the company's second quarter earnings, it was revealed that the group's revenue increased a full 43% over the same period of time in 2014. More good news came from the fact that billings also grew 45% to a full $79 million dollars. Despite this, the company reported significant losses as the quarter drew to a close, resulting in a decrease in their stock price of $0.28 per share.

Looking ahead to the end of the current quarter, Box representatives indicated that the company expects to end the period with between $76 and $77 million dollars, which is above current expert forecasts of around $74 million dollars. End-of-the-year revenue is expected to come in at between $295 and $297 million dollars.

Box and IBM

One of the most significant steps that Box has taken since going public takes the form of a global partnership with IBM. Under the agreement, customers who currently use IBM's enterprise content management system, social collaboration tools, security products and analytical solutions will all have access to Box's cloud-based storage solution. This was done in an attempt to significantly increase Box's global market share.

Under the agreement, IBM will also integrate Box into its MobileFirst initiative for the Apple iOS platform. Thanks to a separate agreement with Microsoft, Box will also be integrated with the Office 365 productivity suite for desktop users, iOS users and customers who use Outlook.

An Eye Towards the Future

Box is betting on a number of upcoming product enhancements that will hopefully make it a much more attractive package for a wider range of customers. Box Governance is a new solution that is designed to let users manage the entirety of a business document's lifecycle, from creation to retention to disposition and everything in between.

Box for Education has also launched, which is a service that has been customized to meet the current needs of the education industry. It is aimed at universities and is intended to give them the power to leverage technology to create much more collaborative environments.

Despite all of this, however, Box is still spending an incredible amount of money and is struggling to truly find its place in the industry as a whole. Because larger groups like Amazon and Google are engaging in a price war for essentially the same type of service, Box is having a difficult time improving margins across the board.