Access Your Business Documents from Your Android Device

Cloud storage and collaboration platform Box.net has just released its Box for Android app to the Android Market.

Like the Box for iPhone and Box for iPad, Box for Android lets users access, share and manage business content on-the-go all from their Android device.

The app works on any Android phone running Android OS 2.0 or later. This includes most of the biggest sellers like the DROID, DROID X, Galaxy S, Nexus One and HTC EVO 4G.

The app is pretty similar to its iPhone and iPad cousina, allowing users to browse files and folders, preview documents, media and web documents and share links to a file or folder via e-mail.

However Box for Android includes the ability to search for files and sort your results directly from the app — a feature the iOS version doesn’t currently support. Additionally, because Android has a more visible file system, it’s a bit easier to upload files and folders that are already on your Android device directly to Box.net. You can do this in iOS, but it sometimes requires the use of external programs like GoodReader.

Android is taking off in a big way with consumers and that trend is extending to business users too. Despite all this growth, the number of apps for business users in the Android Market is limited when you compare those offerings to iOS or even BlackBerry. More vendors are working on getting Android versions of their apps into the marketplace, but Box is one of the first non-Google cloud companies that we’ve seen take on this growing sector of the market.

When I spoke to Box.net’s co-founder and CEO, Aaron Levie, he noted that mobile is an important part of Box’s overall vision for cloud collaboration. As smartphone usage continues to grow, having access to your files and documents wherever you are becomes more and more important. This is where Levie sees Box’s real advantage over more traditional content management and collaboration platforms. Because Box.net takes place on the cloud, gaining access from mobile devices doesn’t require the headache that dealing with internal firewalls and on-site networks.

Mobile access is actually one of the best arguments for using cloud content and collaboration systems. That’s why the big cloud companies like Box.net, Salesforce.com and Google are investing so heavily in mobile.

For Box, coming to Android doesn’t stop with just the mobile app. Just like Box has OpenBox Mobile APIs available to iOS developers to integrate with their own programs, Android developers will be able to connect their apps to Box for Android. That means that photo applications or sound recording apps can build in the ability to save directly to a Box folder or access content from those folders, in addition to offering to save or access content from an SD card.

We hope that Box for Android is the beginning of a new trend to bring more business-focused apps to the platform. Do you use your Android device for business? What apps do you use to access files and documents? Let us know.