The file-sharing and collaboration sector just got a new competitor: Amazon.
Amazon announced Thursday the latest product to join its Amazon Web Services stack, Amazon Zocalo. On its blog, the company describes Zocalo as "a fully managed, secure document storage and sharing service designed specifically for the needs of the enterprise."
In other words, Amazon is building its competitor to Microsoft's SharePoint Online and Box. Through its AWS cloud stack, Amazon has already offered enterprise customers the ability to built their own internal document storage systems â€" but this is the first time the company has formally entered the space with a fully managed product.
The idea behind Zocalo is to make it easy for users to share and store documents, while also keeping those documents secure enough to meet the standards of most IT departments.
Zocalo has centralized user management, and can also link to an existing Active Directory. This is a big deal, since one of the challenges with cloud-based document solutions such as Dropbox is the fact that permissions structures aren't granular enough to work in environments that have strict IT policies.
Amazon also says that all documents are transmitted in encrypted form.
Zocalo has client syncing apps for Windows and Mac for folder sync. You can also use Zocalo apps for iPad, Kindle Fire and Android tablets.
The pricing for Zocalo is aggressive. Amazon is charging $5 per user per month for the service, with each user having access to 200GB of storage.
Moreover, Amazon is offering Zocalo integration for free (with a 50GB per user storage limit) to Amazon WorkSpaces customers.
Image: Amazon
Amazon WorkSpaces are virtualized cloud computing instances with machines equipped with a set of applications. Users can access these virtual machines from any desktop or mobile device.
Both Zocalo and Amazon WorkSpaces are signs that Amazon is taking the idea of productizing its vast infrastructure seriously.
For years, Amazon has excelled in the cloud infrastructure game, winning the hearts and minds of developers over competing solutions from Microsoft, Rackspace and Google.
Now Amazon is turning that infrastructure not just into products for consumers â€" with items such as Amazon Music and Amazon Cloud Drive â€" but into products for the more lucrative enterprise market.
Now Amazon has the potential to compete against the really big players: SAP, Oracle and Microsoft.
The test will be, will enterprise CIO's be willing to go with Amazon over other offerings?
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