I'll never understand why a company has to keep growing. Obviously I don't have a degree in economics, but why can't a company do well and then continue being so without having the need to innovate all the time? Sorry if I'm missing something big.
Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO
61–70 of 215 posts
Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO
#62One concern about Dropbox I have is its inability to establish itself beyond its File Storage / Syncing software. Salesforce.com, in comparison, has been acquiring companies left and right. Notable acquisitions of Dropbox, like Mailbox, have either shut down, or are nowhere on the impact map. As Dropbox user (albeit a free one), I don't find it useful for anything beyond synced storage (if there is any new addition i…
That's why they're focused on the Enterprise now. I agree their acquisition strategy has been lackluster.
Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO
#63Dropbox for Business has really changed my view of Dropbox the company. With AzureAD SSO integration, and the new Smart Sync feature, it's now possible to run a small company completely in the cloud, with terabytes of data in the cloud accessible to everyone without them synching it all to their laptop. Smart Sync is their game changer.
I think Google Drive's new features (Team Drives & File Stream) are going to win at least some of this market, too. Drive wasn't compelling for any sort of enterprise data management before, but it's slowly evolving some appealing features. If you add something like AODocs, you can get 80% of what even most large companies need out of an EDM platform.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/03/14/google-...
Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's $20/month for unlimited storage on Dropbox.
AFAICT only if you buy 3 licenses minimum.
That's a bummer. I have a sizeable chunk of raw image files I'd love to back up somewhere without having to have it on my machine, Dropbox would be a good fit if it wasn't for the 1TB limit on individuals. Ended up uploading directly to S3 and archiving to Glacier.
Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO
#65Cloud storage is a commodity business and race to the bottom: hard drive prices already got there as local backup. Failing to see what the ipo upside is here.
A bit melodramatic but the cloud is very new and untested against natural events such as a coronal mass ejection, which could wipe put huge amounts of stored data...the sort of thing that arguably should be in IPO risk lists but isn't...yet... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection
Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely if the company isn't "living up to it's valuation" that's a problem for the people who erroneously valued it at that level, not for the company?
The people who erroneously valued it are shareholders in the company, the company exists to benefit its shareholders, ergo (the shareholders would say) it's a problem for the company.
Basically people jumped on Dropbox to make money out of Dropbox's success. If Dropbox remain conservative and just continue to do remote storage/syncing well then those people won't get [as much] free money.
Those people aren't investing they're speculating. They're not there primarily to see Dropbox succeed they're shareholders because they want to get rich from other people's work.
So yes that's a problem for the company. Ultimately this model of "investment" can kill a business that is technically succeeding because the speculators don't see a high enough return. That's also a problem for society as it creates instability and prevents technologically successful companies from prospering long term.
At least that's one narrative that appears to fit well with my observations.
Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO
#67One concern about Dropbox I have is its inability to establish itself beyond its File Storage / Syncing software. Salesforce.com, in comparison, has been acquiring companies left and right. Notable acquisitions of Dropbox, like Mailbox, have either shut down, or are nowhere on the impact map. As Dropbox user (albeit a free one), I don't find it useful for anything beyond synced storage (if there is any new addition i…
[deleted]
Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO
#68I'll never understand why a company has to keep growing. Obviously I don't have a degree in economics, but why can't a company do well and then continue being so without having the need to innovate all the time? Sorry if I'm missing something big.
It only does if it cant pay the bills.. right now some of these unicorns have large amounts of debt, or similar obligations, that they cant payback unless they grow.
Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's $20/month for unlimited storage on Dropbox.
Does anything stop you from uploading 10s or 100s of TB? I recently crossed 1TB of storage use on S3 (which costs around $20/month) and am in the process of exploring alternatives. I've never really understood how companies can offer "unlimited" storage at low prices.
"Unlimited" space in any online service almost always means "there is a soft cap where we start threatening to shut down your service, but we won't tell you what it is ahead of time".
Re: Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO
#70One concern about Dropbox I have is its inability to establish itself beyond its File Storage / Syncing software. Salesforce.com, in comparison, has been acquiring companies left and right. Notable acquisitions of Dropbox, like Mailbox, have either shut down, or are nowhere on the impact map. As Dropbox user (albeit a free one), I don't find it useful for anything beyond synced storage (if there is any new addition i…
Maybe just having one good product is okay.