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Dropbox Said No To “Nine-Digit” Acquisition Offer From Steve Jobs

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Re: Dropbox Said No To “Nine-Digit” Acquisition Offer From Steve Jobs

#71

Post by demetris »

flipbrad wrote: post #37
brlewis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Operating systems we run Dropbox on at my house: Ubuntu, OSX, iOS, Windows, Blackberry 5. Someday they may all have Dropbox-like functionality built in, and someday after that they may interoperate. Dropbox can stay in their current business a long time regardless.

Given Ubuntu already has that functionality built in (Ubuntu One), and offers Win, Android and iOS 3.1+ clients, we're really not so far off from that being the case already.

Ubuntu One cannot be compared to Dropbox, at least not yet: It does not support OSX and it does not support other Linux operating systems either, not even its daddy Debian.

I run Windows and Debian on my desktops and laptop and I recently decided to try Ubuntu One. I could find no mention of other Linux OSes on the Ubuntu One page, and a quick web search returned nothing encouraging.

I was surprised by this. The impression I got is that Ubuntu One is just for people whose main OS is Ubuntu and who may have to also use Windows from time to time.

Re: Dropbox Said No To “Nine-Digit” Acquisition Offer From Steve Jobs

#72

Post by skb_ »

betterth wrote: post #47
channelmeter wrote: post #13

"Houston cut Jobs’ pitch short: He was determined to build a big company, he said, and wasn’t selling, no matter the status of the bidder" Props to Drew. I don't think many other entrepreneurs would've been as zealous and decline such an offer.

Nine figures buyout? You really do have to believe in your future success to turn that down, especially as a two year old company and long before the current milestones. That kind of money, Drew's payout would have been substantial, enough to bankroll any project he could dream of (or live comfortably forever). He must really believe in what he's doing.

Drew's payout would have been substantial, enough to bankroll any project he could dream of

maybe dropbox is that project...

Re: Dropbox Said No To “Nine-Digit” Acquisition Offer From Steve Jobs

#73

Post by VladRussian »

jroseattle wrote: post #63
daniel-cussen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty big feature, I'd say. Anybody who was a mac user before 2000 can tell you how painful it was to use a mac when your friends or coworkers had windows. It was horrible. Problems with file sharing between systems created huge network effects for microsoft. It killed the possibility of having a mac for a lot of people. The fundamental problem of compatibility requires not only technological and architectura…

Certainly a big feature, although as platform/os providers integrate similar functionality, that differentiation point for Dropbox will begin to diminish. But you're spot on with varying OSes being willing to cooperate to allow multiple clients access to shared data stores. Google, Apple, Microsoft and open source all in agreement on file sharing? Right..... Surely the latest Dropbox investors considered that, and ga…

harmony across OS providers will never happen and isn't necessary here. The cross OS file sharing has been solved many years ago and most successfully by 3rd party independent tools like samba(intranet) or cvs/rsync(internet) and with HTTP based tools on the horizon (webdav is a good starting point). If my understanding correct, Dropbox is just extremely consumer friendly implementation of something like rsync. The main danger to them isn't OS providers, it is another Dropbox, more user friendly, agile, convenient, cheaper, faster ... while the original Dropbox grows and starts having cost structure and screwing up like a large company.

Re: Dropbox Said No To “Nine-Digit” Acquisition Offer From Steve Jobs

#74

Post by badclient »

Semiapies wrote: post #67

I simply don't believe this story. If you have $100+ million to throw at as fundamentally simple a product as Dropbox is, you have more than enough to make a good clone of it. It's not like Jobs can deny it now.

you have more than enough to make a good clone of it

You are being naive if you think that given enough money, you can clone any product. That's simply false, especially for large orgs where more money invested towards a project can even become more of a problem than aid.

Re: Dropbox Said No To “Nine-Digit” Acquisition Offer From Steve Jobs

#75

Post by nhangen »

DilipJ wrote: post #57
nhangen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure he's flying high right now, but I think he's foolish to turn down an offer like that in the same way Groupon was foolish to turn down Google's 11 digit offer. Sure, one could argue that money is less important than achieving a vision, but with that kind of money, Drew could work on 5 additional visions of similar size, knowing his product was in good hands.

It takes real balls and vision to turn down that much money. The thing is, without having the confidence to be able to turn down millions, it's unlikely one will ever be able to build a product worth millions. Those in it for the quick buck usually will fold under the slightest bit of trouble.

I would disagree that saying yes to an enticing offer is the same as looking for a quick buck.

Re: Dropbox Said No To “Nine-Digit” Acquisition Offer From Steve Jobs

#78

Post by inopinatus »

I use Dropbox, but only the free version. For bulkier data I am just rsync'ing to my linode, with exactly the same utility to me. It is quite telling that the dropbox app uses librsync.

In other words, the value to the consumer is in the simple, reliable interface and easy sharing. They have got this right where Jungledisk got it wrong.

However, the value to investors is in the customer base and an implied CLV for those that pay offsetting the exponentially decaying cost of storage for those that don't.

In other words, it's a Ponzi scheme for storage and they're betting on Moore's law. Unfortunately, it is almost trivial to reimplement their utility; any half-decent systems programmer will instantly grasp what they're doing. So I would not invest in Dropbox, but whilst they maintain some momentum I am happy to store low-value documents on their service.

Re: Dropbox Said No To “Nine-Digit” Acquisition Offer From Steve Jobs

#79

Post by urza »

ernestipark wrote: post #62
run4yourlives wrote: post #58

I love dropbox (use it daily, but only the free version). To be honest I think this decision will probably be looked on as a mistake. Personally, I'm moving to iCloud soon. The reason for this is that it will enable syncing of the notoriously closed Apps and music that come with Apple. The non-apple crowd will not see this benefit, but once Google or Facebook decide they want to be in the cloud storage game too, Drop…

I think people are taking a very narrow minded view of Dropbox. You're absolutely right that iCloud, potential entries of Google or other big players could hurt Dropbox and be competitive. However you have to imagine Dropbox is looking beyond "just file syncing" on client computers. Do you think when Jobs re-joined Apple, he was thinking "lets make Apple a better computer company". Dropbox gave an info session/tech-t…

they want to be the "Filesystem of the internet" - this is scary, I really hope they won't succeed.

Re: Dropbox Said No To “Nine-Digit” Acquisition Offer From Steve Jobs

#80

Post by hristov »

run4yourlives wrote: post #58

I love dropbox (use it daily, but only the free version). To be honest I think this decision will probably be looked on as a mistake. Personally, I'm moving to iCloud soon. The reason for this is that it will enable syncing of the notoriously closed Apps and music that come with Apple. The non-apple crowd will not see this benefit, but once Google or Facebook decide they want to be in the cloud storage game too, Drop…

Dropbox have nothing to worry about from apple thus far. Yeah icloud may be good for people that have their entire lives in apple products. But those people are relatively few. The vast majority of people use different platforms and do not want to be tied down to a single vendor.

As long as Apple continue their tradition of (i) completely ignoring linux and (ii) making some of the worst windows software ever made, Dropbox have nothing to worry about.

Facebook is a non factor. Given Facebooks innovative stands on privacy I doubt anyone sane would let facebook keep their files.

Google would be a much bigger concern, but thus far Google have been extremely slow on this front, they seem to be tied up in some grand strategy/architecture dreaming, so they have been a non-factor thus far. I would say Dropbox's future depends mostly on Google's ability to get their heads out of the clouds forget all their grand world domination strategies and build something that works right now.

So yes there are a lot of potential competitors but each one of them carries a lot of architectural and strategy baggage and the entire point of dropbox is to avoid all of that stuff. So I think their chances of success are not bad at all.

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