The Layer On Top: Mover.io

Audio version

“Box loves us,” says Eric Warnke, CEO of Mover. His company makes a tool that lets people quickly move mass amounts of data directly between cloud-based file storage systems.

Warnke wants Mover to sit on top of all those online storage products. He wants developers to stop worrying about writing files to different file systems (like Box, Dropbox, Sugarsync, Skydrive, etc). He wants to build the one universal online storage API, to free developers from worrying about storage.

Mover has an app using its API: Backup Box. It transfers files between online storage systems. It can be used, for example, by a business that wants to import its old FTP archives, or employees’ “rogue” Dropbox accounts, into an approved corporate Box account. That’s why Box loves it, Warnke says: It makes getting started with Box easy.

What’s not easy: Building a consistent layer on top of dozens of businesses that are actually trying to differentiate from each other. Mover is walking a tightrope, trying to remove differentiation between products for  developers, while still hoping these products continue to differentiate and compete with each other on features, service, and prices. It’s only when data moves between services that Mover works.

It is not a zero-sum game, Warnke says. The easier it is to move data between systems, the better the big storage industry does. This thinking is reasonable and solid when an industry is growing. But we’ll see how people feel when (or if) the storage segment goes stagnant, or contracts.

- Rafe

See also:
Otixo
Primadesk
Filepicker

Audio of this column:

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