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Dropbox: Files Without Borders

forbes.com

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Re: Dropbox: Files Without Borders

#21

Post by bl4k »

benmathes wrote: post #15
ashishbharthi wrote: post #2

Absolutely true. Dropbox is one hell of a cloud backup solution. With Dropbox iPhone app, I have all my important files with me in my pocket. Does anybody have numbers on their current free/paid users?

From the article: He won't disclose details, but probably 2% of Dropbox's members are paying customers, putting revenues at $14 million this year.

2% is waaaay too high

Re: Dropbox: Files Without Borders

#22

Post by dasil003 »

Dropbox is just incredibly well done. I tried using services like xdrive, strongspace, idisk and a few others over the years and they all felt so cumbersome that they never stuck. Dropbox by comparison seems to sync incredibly fast, has a sensible way for dealing with conflicts, and just seems to hit a sweet spot of simplicity and functionality.

Re: Dropbox: Files Without Borders

#24

Post by arethuza »

tel wrote: post #20
Groxx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Dropbox only does one-way access for people without an account, I assume they saved 25k by distributing paperwork, not receiving. This implies they've been wasting almost $5,000 per week because they didn't find a content host / run an FTP / frickin E-MAIL the stuff . What. The. (technological) Fail. You'd think they'd look into something like that a little earlier, as with a bit of setup an FTP host can be ess…

I think that's the point of Dropbox. Setting up FTP isn't as easy. Dropbox is so friendly people use it in lieu of more complete, cheaper solutions.

I agree - FTP requires servers to be set up etc. In most corporate environments that can take a long time (for good reasons, you don't go changing perimeter firewalls without some kind of change control) - much easier for everyone to install Dropbox and start sharing stuff in minutes.

Re: Dropbox: Files Without Borders

#25

Post by statictype »

Groxx wrote: post #4
gr366 wrote: post #3

Rodeo producer North American Midway Entertainment saved $25,000 in the first six weeks using Dropbox by eliminating overnight FedEx shipments with paperwork. Wow. Talk about having a great story to tell. I'm sure there's a lot of individual users of Dropbox (myself included), but the business cost-savings angle could be a huge one for them to pursue.

Since Dropbox only does one-way access for people without an account, I assume they saved 25k by distributing paperwork, not receiving. This implies they've been wasting almost $5,000 per week because they didn't find a content host / run an FTP / frickin E-MAIL the stuff . What. The. (technological) Fail. You'd think they'd look into something like that a little earlier, as with a bit of setup an FTP host can be ess…

For a company that isn't very tech savvy (which may be the case for a company distributing so much papers around) dropbox provides the benefit of being dead-simple.

Re: Dropbox: Files Without Borders

#26

Post by Groxx »

tel wrote: post #20
Groxx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Dropbox only does one-way access for people without an account, I assume they saved 25k by distributing paperwork, not receiving. This implies they've been wasting almost $5,000 per week because they didn't find a content host / run an FTP / frickin E-MAIL the stuff . What. The. (technological) Fail. You'd think they'd look into something like that a little earlier, as with a bit of setup an FTP host can be ess…

I think that's the point of Dropbox. Setting up FTP isn't as easy. Dropbox is so friendly people use it in lieu of more complete, cheaper solutions.

Setting it up - absolutely. Using it once it's in place - pretty close.

I don't expect them to set it up themselves. Just to hunt someone down and pay them a couple thousand to solve their ridiculously expensive problem.

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