Why Digital Storage Is Free, But Collaboration Is Priceless

Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins recently released her 2014 Internet Trends Report and amongst the data rich content, one slide really stuck out to me. It’s an important slide that reinforces a key element of the Bloomfire business model; our customers do not pay for digital storage. It’s free.

And for good reason—because it is in fact virtually free. According to Ms. Meeker’s data, since 1992 the cost of a gigabyte of storage has declined by 99.9965% from $569 per gigabyte in 1992 to 2 cents a gigabyte in 2012.

Digital storage is cheap, and continuing to get even more inexpensive. But digital storage frequently just sits there. The content, information and knowledge that resides in these online repositories often lies dormant—gathering dust like the odds and ends that fill the storage container from your last move that you still pay $59/month for but have long since forgotten.

But digital storage with Bloomfire is different. The content on Bloomfire lives and breathes. The data, information and knowledge assets that our customers have on Bloomfire are living assets that people and teams use to get their jobs done. Any content, anywhere can be brought back to life through Bloomfire. The communities and collaboration that takes place through the information assets on Bloomfire help make teams smarter and more productive. Teams sell more, service customers better, engage employees more effectively and in general just perform better.

We don’t charge for storage because it is in fact so inexpensive. Collaboration is what matters, so why pay for something that’s basically free. We’ll give our customers digital storage for free, because it’s the collaboration that they find truly priceless.