Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO

Post by EGreg » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 6:56 PM UTC

blowski wrote: post #14

shubhamjain wrote: post #10

One 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…

Why do they need to expand beyond that? Am I idealistic to say a company can survive just by doing something really well. Salesforce is hardly a paragon of a well-executed clear and consistent vision. I pay Dropbox because I can rely on their backups any place at any time, not because their storage is cheap.

Post by brightball » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 7:03 PM UTC

rogerbinns wrote: post #136

brightball wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To this point, Dropbox does an excellent job of what they set out to do. I haven't seen anybody do it better and I'm a happy paid user. Being able to pay $10 / month for 1TB of fast, instantly synced and versioned online storage integrated directly into the filesystem is hard to beat.

The place where Dropbox is spectacularly bad is multiple account support. Google does a good job of multiple account support - you log in to the relevant multiple accounts and things work. Dropbox expects you to pseudo-merge exactly one personal account with exactly one business account. You end up with a mess. It gets even worse when trying to unmerge them. And is not useful should you have more accounts than exactl…

Post by evilduck » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 7:21 PM UTC

bksenior wrote: post #74

nicoburns wrote: post #53

Earlier 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?

Hah. It becomes a problem for it's users. When they are chasing quarterlies and the focus shifts from providing a good experience to making numbers, you'll feel it. Most companies DNA is pretty baked in by the time they offer publicly.

Post by fencepost » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 7:23 PM UTC

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #18

blowski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they need to expand beyond that? Am I idealistic to say a company can survive just by doing something really well. Salesforce is hardly a paragon of a well-executed clear and consistent vision. I pay Dropbox because I can rely on their backups any place at any time, not because their storage is cheap.

The main problem is that, if they wanted to, it shouldn't take Apple/Microsoft/Google/Amazon too much work to put out a comparable product and offer it for free. As an anecdote, my girlfriend already cancelled her Dropbox account because iCloud provides what she needs at a much cheaper cost. Personally, I require Unix support and also use a large portion of the terabyte of space, but I'd bet that the majority of user…

Post by stevehawk » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 7:32 PM UTC

blowski wrote: post #14

shubhamjain wrote: post #10

One 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…

Why do they need to expand beyond that? Am I idealistic to say a company can survive just by doing something really well. Salesforce is hardly a paragon of a well-executed clear and consistent vision. I pay Dropbox because I can rely on their backups any place at any time, not because their storage is cheap.