Box CEO Aaron Levie. (GeekWire File Photo)

IBM and Box are teaming up in an effort to bring a smarter, more centralized cloud-storage model to enterprise customers. Box will integrate many of IBM’s enterprise solutions into its business-level cloud options.

The new partnership will bring IBM’s business, security and analytics power to Box’s cloud content collaboration systems. IBM will integrate Box’s cloud collaboration into existing business apps as well. They say business customers will be able to make Box’s cloud storage options a more central part of an employee’s daily routine.

“With this global partnership, the systems that are at the heart of major enterprises will work in concert with the technology powering end-user collaboration and sharing,” said Box CEO Aaron Levie in a blog post. “A retailer will be able to connect their back-office workflows with the content needed to help a retail store associate deliver a more personalized shopping experience, and a healthcare provider will be able to leverage IBM’s analytics to serve up relevant health information to drive better patient engagement.”

Users will be able to run IBM analytics and run content management systems with data stored on the Box cloud. And customers of Box and IBM will be able to choose which cloud data centers they want to use, allowing international customers to keep data in IBM’s local servers rather than overseas.

It’s the latest industry collaboration by IBM in the enterprise market, following the company’s partnership with Apple. Box was founded in 2005 by two Mercer Island high school students, Levie and Dylan Smith. The company went public earlier this year. Box stock jumped nearly 6 percent this morning after the deal was announced.

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