The availability of faster and cheaper broadband plans has led to an exponential increase in data consumption. Data storage is now an essential part of our daily digital lives, and while physical storage offers greater capacity, cloud storage offers flexibility and easy access, and the ability to share and collaborate while on the go.
DigiBoxx was founded during the 2020 Covid-induced lockdown, coinciding with a clarion call by the Indian government to “Make in India”. It is India’s answer to a SaaS-based smart Indian digital file storage and digital asset management platform that allows citizens to create and save data on Indian servers. Abhijit Ray – Chief Technology Officer, DigiBoxxshares their insights and opinions on what sets them apart from the competition.
- What sets DigiBoxx apart from its competitors?
Answer: DigiBoxx was born out of the need for affordable storage for everyone. The USP of DigiBoxx is that it is developed in India and the user’s digital assets are stored in data centers located in India. We identified the unmet need of citizens who wanted a service that ensured their data remained in the country. It’s also highly scalable, meaning it can cater to the needs of individuals, freelancers or gig workers, small businesses and enterprises.
Most cloud service providers offer paid plans that are not as affordable as DigiBoxx. There are big players in this space in the world today, but no one has thought about the common, everyday people who also have a digital footprint but don’t have a big budget for cloud storage. This is where DigiBoxx comes in. Our free plan offers a substantial storage space of 20 GB, and the paid packages are very affordable for everyone, regardless of their economic status.
To put that into perspective, a 100GB Google Drive monthly subscription will get you a 2TB DigiBoxx plan for one month. It is very economical for the average consumer and business. It also includes the recently launched DigiFotos feature, which allows users to sync their photos automatically from their smartphone to their DigiBoxx cloud drive.
We’ve also simplified our user interface so that when our customers use DigiBoxx, they don’t feel like they’re dealing with a complex technical product. We have invested considerable time and effort to ensure that the look and feel of the user interface is very simple and we also maintain absolute transparency in how we store and protect data, including passwords. We also provide customer support in local languages to ensure that customers who do not speak English well or are not particularly tech-savvy can also use our services with ease.
- DigiBoxx is advertised as a cost-effective option for individuals, SMEs/MSMEs, etc. Could you provide a more detailed explanation of its features and how they help DigiBoxx users?
answer: DigiBoxx prides itself on being a local service, but that’s not our only USP. The storage as a service we offer is very affordable and can cater to both the individual user and SMB, ranging from basic cloud sharing features to multi-user capabilities, asset tracking and collaboration.
The plans offered are extremely competitive. Individual users can invest as little as Rs 30 per month for 100GB of storage. Small businesses can avail 500GB at Rs 999 and this includes access to 50 users, which is not offered by any international cloud storage service. This makes it more cost-effective for companies to collaborate on digital campaigns and creatives through DigiBoxx, gain web traffic insights and create customized workflows.
- Does DigiBoxx support multiple platforms? How easy is it for users to access their accounts?
answer: DigiBoxx is available to anyone with internet access and a web browser – whether it’s a computer, laptop or mobile device. One just needs to enter their name and email ID to register. The user will receive an email with instructions to activate their account and set a password. That’s it. Now the user can register for DigiBoxx from the web browser and through the app that is available
for Android and iOS devices. The team is constantly refining our existing service and adding new features like a desktop app, integrating with other core services so that users can get the most out of DigiBoxx. Given the popularity DigiBoxx has enjoyed, the next 12 to 18 months will be extremely exciting as we launch and add more products and features.
- Given the number of data breaches that occur daily, how secure and safe is DigiBoxx in terms of data protection?
Answer: This is a question most people ask themselves when thinking about a cloud service. We use several layers of firewalls on our network. Our service is encrypted with 256-bit encryption, right from customers’ devices to our servers. In other words, the moment you log into DigiBoxx, your interaction is encrypted until you log out. We also routinely check our infrastructure for vulnerabilities against the latest security standards and take appropriate measures.
DigiBoxx follows regulatory data requirements and Indian laws such as the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill.
As a new entrant, the GDPR works in our favor. This has allowed us to create products that are GDPR compliant. We are currently in the process of ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certification. We are already certified by numerous other internal audits around the world and operate from data centers that are MeitY certified – MeitY has only certified 16 data centers in this country and we are one of them. As a MeitY certified data center, we operate under the aegis of
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ensures that we are aligned with the most up-to-date data security and safety policies in the country.
- Is it safe to store data in the cloud? What challenges did you face in designing this product?
answer: One might be a bit worried about storing data in the cloud as their data will be located remotely and also because they are constantly hearing about something or the other in the news. Now by chance If some misfortune happens it is almost like a force majeure event which we all know is very rare. These are exceptions and should not guide our decisions. It’s like refusing to fly because an accident might happen.
When we designed this product, we had several fundamental principles in mind to adhere to, security at the top. We had to put the app through multiple rounds of security testing before releasing it to the general public. It was a very extensive exercise in the beginning and it took a lot of time and effort and we had to work very hard to meet the launch date.
- What technologies are used in the development of this product?
answer: We used multiple technologies to develop this product. The most significant are Angular, Python, PHP, Kotlin and Swift.
- What else can we expect from DigiBoxx in terms of innovation in the near future to keep up with the trends?
answer: We released our Partner API just a few days ago. This will allow a number of different businesses to benefit from DigiBoxx’s affordable storage solution for India. We also offer more integrations so that our customers find it very easy to use DigiBoxx seamlessly in their favorite apps. We are extremely excited about the possibilities and I personally believe that we can completely disrupt the digital storage space here in India with DigiBoxx’s upcoming offerings.