Microsoft wants to make it as easy as possible to migrate to Microsoft 365, and today the company announced it had purchased a Canadian startup called Mover to help. The companies did not reveal the acquisition price.

Microsoft 365 is the company’s bundle that includes Office 365, Microsoft Teams, security tools and workflow. The idea is to provide customers with a soup-to-nuts, cloud-based productivity package. Mover helps customers get files from another service into the Microsoft 365 cloud.

As Jeff Tepper wrote in a post on the Official Microsoft Blog announcing the acquisition, this about helping customers get to the Microsoft cloud as quickly and smoothly as possible. “Today, Mover supports migration from over a dozen cloud service providers — including Box, Dropbox, Egnyte, and Google Drive — into OneDrive and SharePoint, enabling seamless file collaboration across Microsoft 365 apps and services, including the Office apps and Microsoft Teams,” Tepper wrote.

Tepper also points out that they will be gaining the expertise of the Mover team as it moves to Microsoft and helps add to the migration tools already in place.

Tony Byrne, founder and principal analyst at Real Story Group, says that moving files from one system to another like this can be extremely challenging regardless of how you do it, and the file transfer mechanism is only part of it. “The transition to 365 from an on-prem system or competing cloud supplier is never a migration, per se. It’s a rebuild, with a completely different UX, admin model, set of services, and operational assumptions all built into the Microsoft cloud offering,” Byrne explained.

Mover is based in Calgary, Canada. It was founded in 2012 and raised $1 million, according to Crunchbase data. It counts some big clients as customers including AutoDesk, Symantec and BuzzFeed.

It was a big day for startup Render, which participated in the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield today. While it was at it, it also announced some upgrades to its managed cloud platform.

First of all, it announced the ability to spin up object storage in the cloud, while greatly simplifying the tasks associated with adding storage. CEO and founder Anurag Goel says that the storage option is something customers have been requesting, and as with their other services, they handle a lot of the heavy lifting for them.

“One of the things that our users want us to do next is to build out object storage. Even though they can use things like Amazon S3 and other cloud storage options, they know that Render is going to be easier for them to use. So they really want object storage, and they want everything in one place,” Goel explained.

If you want to do that today without Render, you would have to spin up a virtual machine in the cloud, attach the storage, set up backup schedules and take care of all of these other associated tasks, and what Render is doing with Render Disk, is stripping that all away and managing the process for them.

While the startup was at it, it also developed a concept called infrastructure as code. This allows developers to define their infrastructure requirements in a yaml file. When the developer sends the file to GitHub, Render can build the infrastructure for the customer on the fly based on the contents of this file.

Finally, they are offering a one-click launch to customers. This could come in handy for companies who are offering free trials or open source tools, to enable users to launch their applications with a single click from GitHub and it will load all of the required files.

The world of on-demand storage has seen some ups and downs, with some of the biggest hopefuls pivoting into new areas, some as unrelated as cryptocurrency, in the search for better product-market fit. One that found its groove early on, however, is today announcing an acquisition to expand its existing business into a new market category. Clutter, the on-demand removals and storage company backed by SoftBank, is today announcing that it has acquired The Storage Fox, a startup that will spearhead Clutter’s expansion in to self-storage services in urban locations, starting first in the New York metro area where The Storage Fox is currently active.

The deal is valued at $152 million, Clutter said. Ari Mir, Clutter’s co-founder and CEO, added in an interview that  Clutter did not need to raise any extra funding to finance this acquisition, but said his company is likely to be taking on more financing in the future for growth.

To date, Clutter has raised $310 million, according to PitchBook, including a $200 million round earlier this year led by SoftBank that valued the company at $600 million post-money. Future financing is likely to come in the form of debt to acquire property, as well as equity to expand the business’s platform, hiring and more. It’s currently active in 1,000 cities and towns across the US and the plan will be to stay domestic until it has wider penetration, before exploring how to grow internationally. The deal will bring the total amount of space that Clutter leases and owns up to two million square feet.

“Expanding into self-storage is something we have been discussing since Clutter’s Series A pitch to Sequoia and we are excited to see it come to fruition,” said Omar Hamoui, partner at Sequoia Capital, in a statement. “The acquisition reinforces Clutter’s market leadership and expands Clutter services by offering a better experience for customers who need self-storage or on-demand storage.”

(Notably, too, is that Clutter had to actively bid for this business: “Portfolios like that of The Storage Fox are extremely rare, and this acquisition signals that Clutter is uniquely positioned to take on and succeed in the self-storage industry,” said Eliav Dan, Head of West Coast Real Estate Finance at Barclays, which acted as Clutter’s exclusive financial advisor, in a statement. “Clutter competed with multiple self-storage REITs throughout the bidding process to win the deal — a testament to the strength of the company’s management team and its ability to execute on an innovative business model.”)

Up to now, Clutter business has focused on extending the on-demand model — which has become a cornerstone for a huge wave of e-commerce startups that are tapping into new innovations for managing logistics, the rise of the gig-economy, the proliferation of smartphones, and consumer tastes for instant gratification — to the messy business of helping people move and store their worldly possessions, from which Clutter makes revenues by charging service fees.

Customers might typically be urban dwellers — for example moving to smaller digs or simply looking for a way to, yes, de-Clutter — but the storage centers themselves tend to be far outside city centers. On top of this, Clutter has largely operated on a long-term lease model with the facilities that it uses.

In that regard, this acquisition will be giving the company a couple of interesting new possessions of its own, to tap the self-storage market, estimated to be worth $40 billion annually.

The Storage Fox’s facilities, like other self-storage businesses, are located in areas that are much closer to urban centers, since the model is predicated more on people being able to dip in and out of their storage units quickly and potentially very regularly. In its case, its facilities today are in Yonkers, White Plains, Queens and Brooklyn.

It will also give Clutter a trove of real estate that it will now own: The Storage Fox didn’t appear to raise any traditional VC funding, but it did have large finance agreements in place in order to buy property. That is a pattern that Clutter is likely to continue, Mir said.

Now that there will be more accessible space on Clutter’s platform that it actually owns, it will also give the company a point of entry into a new potential range of business services alongside the self-storage. Could that extend into something like office space, potentially pitting Clutter against one of its portfolio neighbors, WeWork? Mir declined to answer specifically but we’ve seen some outlier cases — such as this guy who lived out of his storage unit — that, while not exactly okay for a number of reasons, does underscore that there is a lot of potential there.

“There are over 52,000 self-storage facilities in the US alone,” Mir said. “If you take all that and add it up, there are more square feet in those storage spaces than there are in McDonald’s and Starbucks in the US, combined. At the same time, inside of cities, we’re running out of space. So our vision is to apply all the technology that we’ve built in house to increase the value that these self-storage facilities provide across society.”

Clutter has already made some moves beyond simple storage in its existing business: it’s already actively advertising the option to rent, sell, donate and dispose of your items if you choose — although it seems that these four services are not yet actively live. Earlier this year, it acquired the storage business of Omni, which itself is currently focusing on rentals.

Storage over all has not been an easy area to tackle for a lot of reasons: on top of the usual issues of needing to ensure that the contractors — the face and engine of your business — are responsible and good at their jobs, the cargo can be unexpectedly large or fragile, and the movement of it might be tied up in all kinds of backstories that make getting from A to B and eventually back to the owner again very complicated.

Mir concedes that the customer satisfaction aspect has been challenging: it’s one of those areas that people are quick to publicly complain when something has gone awry. He also insists that its ratings and Clutter’s efforts are generally improving, and frankly it’s great to hear him be honest about this and not deny that criticism is a challenge and that the company is always working to make this better.

Buyers used to have a limited choice for what kind of storage they got with their laptop or desktop PCs. With the invention of the solid state drive (SSD), you can now choose to configure your system with either the traditional hard disk drive (HDD), SSD, or in some cases both. So what’s the better pick between the two? Here, we compare the two so you can decide for yourself which one best fits your needs.

What is an HDD?
A hard disk drive (HDD) is a computer storage device that’s comprised of metal platters with a magnetic coating, spindle, and various moving parts to process and store data. The common size for laptop hard drives is the 2.5” model, while a larger 3.5” model is usually found in desktop computers.

What is an SSD?
A solid state drive (SSD) is another type of data storage device that performs the same job as an HDD. But instead of storing data on metal platters, an SSD uses flash memory chips and an embedded processor to store, retrieve, and cache data. It is roughly the same size as a typical HDD and looks like a smartphone battery. .

HDD and SSD comparison
Now let’s take a closer look at the two devices. We break it down into the following main categories:

Speed
This is where SSDs truly prevail. While HDDs need a long time to access data and files because the disk must spin to find it, SSDs can complete this task 200% faster since data is instantly accessed through flash memory chips. This is why an SSD-equipped PC will boot within seconds and deliver blazing fast speeds for launching programs and applications, whereas a computer that uses an HDD will take a much longer time to boot the operating system, and will perform slower than an SSD during normal use.

Capacity
As of writing, SSD units max out at 60 TB storage capacity. Although there are large SSDs, anything that’s over 512 GB is beyond most people’s price range. HDDs, on the other hand, have large capacities (1–2 TB) available for much more affordable prices.

Durability
HDDs consist of various moving parts and components, making them susceptible to shock and damage. The longer you use your HDD, the more they wear down and eventually end up failing. Meanwhile, SSDs use a non-mechanical flash storage mounted on a circuit board, providing better performance and reliability, and making it more likely to keep your files and data safe.

Noise
An HDD can sometimes be the loudest part of your computer. Even the highest-performing HDDs will emit some noise when the drive is spinning back and forth to process data. SSDs have no moving parts, so it makes no noise at all.

Heat
More moving parts means more heat, and HDD users will have to accept that their device will degenerate over time because of the heat HDDs produce. An SSD uses flash memory, generating less heat, so they have a longer lifespan.

Cost
SSDs are much more expensive than HDDs, although today the price difference has narrowed considerably. This is why most computers with an SSD only have a few hundred gigabytes of storage. HDDs are about twice as cheap as SSDs.

Despite the higher costs and lower storage capacity, SSD is the clear winner over HDD in terms of performance. While you’re paying more for less memory with an SSD, you’re investing in a faster and far more durable data storage option in the long run.

We recommend using an SSD as the primary storage for your operating system, applications, and most-used programs. You can install an HDD on the same computer to store documents, movies, music, and pictures; these files don’t need to leverage the incredible access times and speed of SSD.

People who buy desktop or laptop computers today need to choose between getting a solid state drive (SSD) or a hard disk drive (HDD) as a primary storage component for their device. But which one is the better choice? In this article, we outline the differences between SSD and HDD, as well as their pros and cons, so you can make the right decision for your next purchase.

What is an HDD?
A hard disk drive (HDD) is a computer storage device that’s comprised of metal platters with a magnetic coating, spindle, and various moving parts to process and store data. The common size for laptop hard drives is the 2.5” model, while a larger 3.5” model is usually found in desktop computers.

What is an SSD?
A solid state drive (SSD) is another type of data storage device that performs the same job as an HDD. But instead of storing data on metal platters, an SSD uses flash memory chips and an embedded processor to store, retrieve, and cache data. It is roughly the same size as a typical HDD and looks like a smartphone battery. .

HDD and SSD comparison
Now let’s take a closer look at the two devices. We break it down into the following main categories:

Speed
This is where SSDs truly prevail. While HDDs need a long time to access data and files because the disk must spin to find it, SSDs can complete this task 200% faster since data is instantly accessed through flash memory chips. This is why an SSD-equipped PC will boot within seconds and deliver blazing fast speeds for launching programs and applications, whereas a computer that uses an HDD will take a much longer time to boot the operating system, and will perform slower than an SSD during normal use.

Capacity
As of writing, SSD units max out at 60 TB storage capacity. Although there are large SSDs, anything that’s over 512 GB is beyond most people’s price range. HDDs, on the other hand, have large capacities (1–2 TB) available for much more affordable prices.

Durability
HDDs consist of various moving parts and components, making them susceptible to shock and damage. The longer you use your HDD, the more they wear down and eventually end up failing. Meanwhile, SSDs use a non-mechanical flash storage mounted on a circuit board, providing better performance and reliability, and making it more likely to keep your files and data safe.

Noise
An HDD can sometimes be the loudest part of your computer. Even the highest-performing HDDs will emit some noise when the drive is spinning back and forth to process data. SSDs have no moving parts, so it makes no noise at all.

Heat
More moving parts means more heat, and HDD users will have to accept that their device will degenerate over time because of the heat HDDs produce. An SSD uses flash memory, generating less heat, so they have a longer lifespan.

Cost
SSDs are much more expensive than HDDs, although today the price difference has narrowed considerably. This is why most computers with an SSD only have a few hundred gigabytes of storage. HDDs are about twice as cheap as SSDs.

Despite the higher costs and lower storage capacity, SSD is the clear winner over HDD in terms of performance. While you’re paying more for less memory with an SSD, you’re investing in a faster and far more durable data storage option in the long run.

We recommend using an SSD as the primary storage for your operating system, applications, and most-used programs. You can install an HDD on the same computer to store documents, movies, music, and pictures; these files don’t need to leverage the incredible access times and speed of SSD.

The hard disk drive (HDD) has been the primary storage device for desktop computers and laptops for a long time. But with the invention of solid state drive (SSD) technology, consumers are now able to choose between the two. So which one should you go for — HDD or SSD? Read on to find out.

What is an HDD?
A hard disk drive (HDD) is a computer storage device that’s comprised of metal platters with a magnetic coating, spindle, and various moving parts to process and store data. The common size for laptop hard drives is the 2.5” model, while a larger 3.5” model is usually found in desktop computers.

What is an SSD?
A solid state drive (SSD) is another type of data storage device that performs the same job as an HDD. But instead of storing data on metal platters, an SSD uses flash memory chips and an embedded processor to store, retrieve, and cache data. It is roughly the same size as a typical HDD and looks like a smartphone battery.

HDD and SSD comparison
Now let’s take a closer look at the two devices. We break it down into the following main categories:

Speed
This is where SSDs truly prevail. While HDDs need a long time to access data and files because the disk must spin to find it, SSDs can complete this task 200% faster since data is instantly accessed through flash memory chips. This is why an SSD-equipped PC will boot within seconds and deliver blazing fast speeds for launching programs and applications, whereas a computer that uses an HDD will take a much longer time to boot the operating system, and will perform slower than an SSD during normal use.

Capacity
As of writing, SSD units max out at 60 TB storage capacity. Although there are large SSDs, anything that’s over 512 GB is beyond most people’s price range. HDDs, on the other hand, have large capacities (1–2 TB) available for much more affordable prices.

Durability
HDDs consist of various moving parts and components, making them susceptible to shock and damage. The longer you use your HDD, the more they wear down and eventually end up failing. Meanwhile, SSDs use a non-mechanical flash storage mounted on a circuit board, providing better performance and reliability, and making it more likely to keep your files and data safe.

Noise
An HDD can sometimes be the loudest part of your computer. Even the highest-performing HDDs will emit some noise when the drive is spinning back and forth to process data. SSDs have no moving parts, so it makes no noise at all.

Heat
More moving parts means more heat, and HDD users will have to accept that their device will degenerate over time because of the heat HDDs produce. An SSD uses flash memory, generating less heat, so they have a longer lifespan.

Cost
SSDs are much more expensive than HDDs, although today the price difference has narrowed considerably. This is why most computers with an SSD only have a few hundred gigabytes of storage. HDDs are about twice as cheap as SSDs.

Despite the higher costs and lower storage capacity, SSD is the clear winner over HDD in terms of performance. While you’re paying more for less memory with an SSD, you’re investing in a faster and far more durable data storage option in the long run.

We recommend using an SSD as the primary storage for your operating system, applications, and most-used programs. You can install an HDD on the same computer to store documents, movies, music, and pictures; these files don’t need to leverage the incredible access times and speed of SSD.

All Windows 10 updates come with security fixes, exciting new features, and other assorted improvements, so it’s critical that you install them as soon as they become available. Unfortunately, downloading the necessary files can take ages if you don’t know how to optimize everything.

Why do updates take so long to install?

Windows 10 updates take a while to complete because Microsoft is constantly adding larger files and features to them. The biggest updates, released in the spring and fall of every year, take upwards of four hours to install — if there are no problems. The process takes even longer if you have a fragmented or nearly filled hard drive.

In addition to the large files and numerous features included in Windows 10 updates, internet speed can significantly affect installation times. This is especially true if your office network is overburdened by multiple people downloading the update at the same time.

If you still experience slow speed even when there aren’t simultaneous downloads, then it’s likely that there is a problem that is preventing the installation from running smoothly.

When you experience any of these issues, try the following:

Free up storage space and defragment your hard drive

Windows 10 updates often take up a lot of hard drive space, so you need to make room for them to speed up the installation. This means deleting old files and uninstalling software you no longer need.

You’ll also want to defragment your hard drive, a process that organizes how data is stored on your hard drive so it can create, open, and save files faster. Defragmenting a drive is as easy as pressing the Windows button and typing Defragment and Optimize Drives. From there, just select the hard drive, click Analyze, and if the drive is more than 10% fragmented, press Optimize.

Run Windows Update Troubleshooter

If broken software components are causing installation problems, this tool may be able to fix the issue and decrease download and install times. Simply press the Windows button and type Troubleshoot Settings. That will open a new window with an option for Windows Update.

Disable startup software

Before your update begins, you should also disable third-party applications that might cause disruptions. To do this, press and hold the Ctrl, Alt, and Del keys and click Task Manager. In the window that opens, click the tab labeled Startup. This will show you all the apps that have permission to open themselves when you log into Windows 10. Right-click any apps that aren’t important and select Disable (never disable a Microsoft task) to speed up the update installation process.

Optimize your network

Sometimes a faster connection is all you need. Consider upgrading to a fiber optic connection or purchasing more bandwidth from your internet service provider. It’s also a good idea to use bandwidth management tools to make sure sufficient network resources are reserved for things like Windows 10 updates, rather than bandwidth hogs like Skype or YouTube.

Schedule updates for low-traffic periods

Sometimes, massive updates with long installation times are unavoidable. So instead of installing them during the day, schedule them for after hours when your computers and office network aren’t in use. Open the Windows Update window and specify when you prefer updates to be installed.

If you need help with any of the tips above, we’re always here to help. Call us today to meet with our Windows specialists!

Windows 10 users are well aware that installing updates can take a long time. We hear users complaining about it all the time. Why are Windows 10 updates so slow, and what can users do? Here’s our take.

Why do updates take so long to install?

Windows 10 updates take a while to complete because Microsoft is constantly adding larger files and features to them. The biggest updates, released in the spring and fall of every year, take upwards of four hours to install — if there are no problems. The process takes even longer if you have a fragmented or nearly filled hard drive.

In addition to the large files and numerous features included in Windows 10 updates, internet speed can significantly affect installation times. This is especially true if your office network is overburdened by multiple people downloading the update at the same time.

If you still experience slow speed even when there aren’t simultaneous downloads, then it’s likely that there is a problem that is preventing the installation from running smoothly.

When you experience any of these issues, try the following:

Free up storage space and defragment your hard drive

Windows 10 updates often take up a lot of hard drive space, so you need to make room for them to speed up the installation. This means deleting old files and uninstalling software you no longer need.

You’ll also want to defragment your hard drive, a process that organizes how data is stored on your hard drive so it can create, open, and save files faster. Defragmenting a drive is as easy as pressing the Windows button and typing Defragment and Optimize Drives. From there, just select the hard drive, click Analyze, and if the drive is more than 10% fragmented, press Optimize.

Run Windows Update Troubleshooter

If broken software components are causing installation problems, this tool may be able to fix the issue and decrease download and install times. Simply press the Windows button and type Troubleshoot Settings. That will open a new window with an option for Windows Update.

Disable startup software

Before your update begins, you should also disable third-party applications that might cause disruptions. To do this, press and hold the Ctrl, Alt, and Del keys and click Task Manager. In the window that opens, click the tab labeled Startup. This will show you all the apps that have permission to open themselves when you log into Windows 10. Right-click any apps that aren’t important and select Disable (never disable a Microsoft task) to speed up the update installation process.

Optimize your network

Sometimes a faster connection is all you need. Consider upgrading to a fiber optic connection or purchasing more bandwidth from your internet service provider. It’s also a good idea to use bandwidth management tools to make sure sufficient network resources are reserved for things like Windows 10 updates, rather than bandwidth hogs like Skype or YouTube.

Schedule updates for low-traffic periods

Sometimes, massive updates with long installation times are unavoidable. So instead of installing them during the day, schedule them for after hours when your computers and office network aren’t in use. Open the Windows Update window and specify when you prefer updates to be installed.

If you need help with any of the tips above, we’re always here to help. Call us today to meet with our Windows specialists!

Keeping up with Windows 10 updates is vital if you want your computers to have the latest features and security fixes. However, Microsoft’s operating system can take hours to update, especially if a significant change is being released. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to speed things up.

Why do updates take so long to install?

Windows 10 updates take a while to complete because Microsoft is constantly adding larger files and features to them. The biggest updates, released in the spring and fall of every year, take upwards of four hours to install — if there are no problems. The process takes even longer if you have a fragmented or nearly filled hard drive.

In addition to the large files and numerous features included in Windows 10 updates, internet speed can significantly affect installation times. This is especially true if your office network is overburdened by multiple people downloading the update at the same time.

If you still experience slow speed even when there aren’t simultaneous downloads, then it’s likely that there is a problem that is preventing the installation from running smoothly.

When you experience any of these issues, try the following:

Free up storage space and defragment your hard drive

Windows 10 updates often take up a lot of hard drive space, so you need to make room for them to speed up the installation. This means deleting old files and uninstalling software you no longer need.

You’ll also want to defragment your hard drive, a process that organizes how data is stored on your hard drive so it can create, open, and save files faster. Defragmenting a drive is as easy as pressing the Windows button and typing Defragment and Optimize Drives. From there, just select the hard drive, click Analyze, and if the drive is more than 10% fragmented, press Optimize.

Run Windows Update Troubleshooter

If broken software components are causing installation problems, this tool may be able to fix the issue and decrease download and install times. Simply press the Windows button and type Troubleshoot Settings. That will open a new window with an option for Windows Update.

Disable startup software

Before your update begins, you should also disable third-party applications that might cause disruptions. To do this, press and hold the Ctrl, Alt, and Del keys and click Task Manager. In the window that opens, click the tab labeled Startup. This will show you all the apps that have permission to open themselves when you log into Windows 10. Right-click any apps that aren’t important and select Disable (never disable a Microsoft task) to speed up the update installation process.

Optimize your network

Sometimes a faster connection is all you need. Consider upgrading to a fiber optic connection or purchasing more bandwidth from your internet service provider. It’s also a good idea to use bandwidth management tools to make sure sufficient network resources are reserved for things like Windows 10 updates, rather than bandwidth hogs like Skype or YouTube.

Schedule updates for low-traffic periods

Sometimes, massive updates with long installation times are unavoidable. So instead of installing them during the day, schedule them for after hours when your computers and office network aren’t in use. Open the Windows Update window and specify when you prefer updates to be installed.

If you need help with any of the tips above, we’re always here to help. Call us today to meet with our Windows specialists!

AWS is already the clear market leader in the cloud infrastructure market, but it’s never been an organization that rests on its past successes. Whether it’s a flurry of new product announcements and enhancements every year, or making strategic acquisitions.

When it bought Israeli storage startup E8 yesterday, it might have felt like a minor move on its face, but AWS was looking, as it always does, to find an edge and reduce the costs of operations in its data centers. It was also very likely looking forward to the next phase of cloud computing. Reports have pegged the deal at between $50 and $60 million.

What E8 gives AWS for relatively cheap money is highly advanced storage capabilities, says Steve McDowell, senior storage analyst at Moor Research and Strategy. “E8 built a system that delivers extremely high-performance/low-latency flash (and Optane) in a shared-storage environment,” McDowell told TechCrunch.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that you close your data centers and move to the cloud, not the other way around, but in 2016 Dropbox undertook the opposite journey. It (mostly) ended its long-time relationship with AWS and built its own data centers.

Of course, that same conventional wisdom would say, it’s going to get prohibitively expensive and more complicated to keep this up. But Dropbox still believes it made the right decision and has found innovative ways to keep costs down.

Akhil Gupta, VP of Engineering at Dropbox, says that when Dropbox decided to build its own data centers, it realized that as a massive file storage service, it needed control over certain aspects of the underlying hardware that was difficult for AWS to provide, especially in 2016 when Dropbox began making the transition.

“Public cloud by design is trying to work with multiple workloads, customers and use cases and it has to optimize for the lowest common denominator. When you have the scale of Dropbox, it was entirely possible to do what we did,” Gupta explained.

Alone again, naturally

One of the key challenges of trying to manage your own data centers, or build a private cloud where you still act like a cloud company in a private context, is that it’s difficult to innovate and scale the way the public cloud companies do, especially AWS. Dropbox looked at the landscape and decided it would be better off doing just that, and Gupta says even with a small team — the original team was just 30 people — it’s been able to keep innovating.

Egnyte announced today that customers can now store G Suite files inside its storage, security and governance platform. This builds on the support the company previously had for Office 365 documents.

Egnyte CEO and co-founder Vineet Jain says that while many enterprise customers have seen the value of a collaborative office suite like G Suite, they might have stayed away because of compliance concerns (whether that was warranted or not).

He said that Google has been working on an API for some time that allows companies like Egnyte to decouple G Suite documents from Google Drive. Previously, if you wanted to use G Suite, you no choice but to store the documents in Google Drive.

Jain acknowledges that the actual integration is pretty much the same as his competitors because Google determined the features. In fact, Box and Dropbox announced similar capabilities over the last year, but he believes his company has some differentiating features on its platform.

“I honestly would be hard pressed to tell you this is different than what Box or Dropbox is doing, but when you look at the overall context of what we’re doing…I think our advanced governance features are a game changer,” Jain told TechCrunch.

What that means is that G Suite customers can open a document and get the same editing experience as they would get were they inside Google Drive, while getting all the compliance capabilities built into Egnyte via Egnyte Protect. What’s more, they can store the files wherever they like, whether that’s in Egnyte itself, an on-premises file store or any cloud storage option that Egnyte supports, for that matter.

G Suite documents stored on the Egnyte platform.

Long before it was commonplace, Egnyte tried to differentiate itself from a crowded market by being a hybrid play where files can live on-premises or in the cloud. It’s a common way of looking at cloud strategy now, but it wasn’t always the case.

Jain has always emphasized a disciplined approach to growing the company, and it has grown to 15,000 customers and 600 employees over 11 years in business. He won’t share exact revenue, but says the company is generating “multi-millions in revenue” each month.

He has been talking about an IPO for some time, and that remains a goal for the company. In a recent letter to employees that Egnyte shared with TechCrunch, Jain put it this way. “Our leadership team, including our board members, have always looked forward to an IPO as an interim milestone — and that has not changed. However, we now believe this company has the ability to not only be a unicorn but to be a multi-billion dollar company in the long-term. This is a mindset that we all need to have moving forward,” he wrote.

Egnyte was founded in 2007 and has raised over $137 million, according to Crunchbase data.