DigiBoxx: The Affordable and Secure Indian Cloud Storage Solution for Individuals and Businesses
The availability of faster and cheaper broadband plans has led to an exponential increase in data consumption. Data storage is an essential part of our daily digital lives now and while physical storage offers higher capacity, Cloud storage offers flexibility and ease of access and ability to share and collaborate while on the move.
DigiBoxx was founded during the Covid-induced lockdown in 2020, coinciding with the Indian Government’s clarion call to ‘Make in India’. It is India’s answer to a SaaS based intelligent 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, DigiBoxx, shares his insights and inputs on what sets them apart from the competition.
- What distinguishes DigiBoxx from its competitors?
Ans: DigiBoxx was born from the need of affordable storage for everyone. DigiBoxx’s USP is that it is has been developed in India and user’s digital assets are stored in data centres located in India. We identified the unmet need of the citizens who wanted a service that made sure that their data stayed in the country. It is 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 major players in this space in the world today but none have given a thought to the regular, everyday people, who also have a digital footprint but do not have a big budget for cloud storage. That’s where DigiBoxx comes in. Our free plan offers a substantial 20GB storage space and the paid packages are very affordable to everyone, irrespective of their economic status.
To put this in perspective, for one month’s 100GB subscription of Google Drive you will get a 2TB plan on DigiBoxx for a month. It is very economical for the average user and business. It also includes the recently-launched DigiFotos feature, which lets users sync their photos automatically from the smartphone to their DigiBoxx cloud drive.
We have also simplified our user interface, so when our customers use DigiBoxx, they don’t feel that they are dealing with a complex technical product. We have invested a significant amount of 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 are not well conversant in English or are not particularly tech savvy can also use our services at ease.
- DigiBoxx is touted as a cost-effective option for individuals, SMEs/MSMEs etc. Could you provide a more detailed explanation of its features and how they assist DigiBoxx users?
Ans: DigiBoxx is proud about being an indigenous service, but that is not our only USP. The storage as a service we offer is very affordable and can cater to the individual user as well as an SMB, scaling from basic cloud sharing features to multi-user, asset tracking, collaboration capabilities.
The plans on offer are extremely competitive. Individual users can invest just Rs 30 a month for a 100GB storage space. Small businesses can avail of 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 over digital campaigns and creatives via DigiBoxx, get web traffic insights and create custom workflows.
- Does DigiBoxx support multiple platforms? How simple is it for users to gain access to their accounts?
Ans: DigiBoxx is accessible to anybody with Internet access and a and a web browser – whether a PC, laptop or a 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 the password. That’s it. Now the user can sign-up for DigiBoxx from the web browser and via the app, which is available
for Android and iOS devices. The team is constantly fine tuning our existing service and adding new features like a desktop app, integrating with other major services so that users can make the most out of DigiBoxx. Considering the popularity that DigiBoxx enjoys, 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 on a daily basis, how secure and safe is DigiBoxx in terms of data protection?
Ans: This is a question most have on their minds when they think of a cloud service. We use multiple layers of firewalls on our network. Our service is encrypted with 256-bit encryption, right from the customers’ devices down to our servers. In other words, the moment you login to DigiBoxx, your interaction is encrypted until you logout. We also routinely check our infrastructure for vulnerabilities per the latest security standards and take appropriate measures.
DigiBoxx follows data regulatory compliance and Indian laws like the Personal Data Protection (PDP) bill.
As a new entrant, the GDPR Act worked to our advantage. It allowed us to create products which are GDPR compliant. We are currently undergoing ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certification. We are already certified by multiple other inner checks worldwide and we operate out of data centres, which are MeitY certified – MeitY has only certified 16 data centres in this country and we are one of them. As a MeitY certified data centre, we work under the aegis of the
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ensuring that we are aligned with the most updated data security and safety policies in the country.
- Is it safe to store data on the cloud? What challenges did you face when designing this product?
Ans: One might be a little apprehensive to store data on the cloud is because their data will reside remotely and also because they keep hearing about something or the other on the news. Now on the off chance If any mishap happens, it is almost like a force majeure event taking place, which we all know is far too rare. Those are exceptions and should not guide our decisions. It’s like refusing to fly because an accident can take place.
When we designed this product, we had a few fundamentals in mind to adhere to, and at the top was security. We had to run the application through multiple rounds of security testing before we released it to the general public. This was a very extensive exercise in the beginning and it consumed a lot of time and effort and we had to work very hard to meet the release date for the launch.
- What technologies are being used in developing this product?
Ans: We have used multiple technologies to develop this product. The most significant ones 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?
Ans: We have released our Partner API just a few days ago. This will allow a number of different businesses to benefit from DigiBoxx’s Priced for India Storage Solution. Furthermore we are coming out with more integrations so that our customers find it very easy to use DigiBoxx seamlessly within their favourite applications. We are extremely excited about the possibilities and I personally believe that we can completely disrupt the space of digital storage here in India with DigiBoxx’s upcoming offerings.
