Cloud storage company Box (box.com) announced its entry into the Japanese market at an event here in Tokyo yesterday. In addition to opening an office with ten staffers here in the Japanese capital, the company also announced a number of local companies that have committed to using their secure file sharing and collaboration solution. These companies include DeNA, famima.com (Family Mart’s online presence), JGC (a global engineering contractor), Mitsubishi Estate (real estate), Sanrio Entertainment Co Ltd, and Waseda University. Box also announced Konica Minolta, NTT Communications, and Cybozu as new platform integration partners joining the Box Partner Network. Box Japan, or K.K. Box Japan, will be led by newly appointed president and managing director Katsunori Furuichi, who previously served as president and CEO of Verisign Japan. It’s good to see such a high profile cloud player moving into Japan and partnering with so many major companies. Thus far Japan has been relatively slow to adopt cloud solutions on the enterprise level, and a step like this one should help accelerate change.