Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dropbox is going brogue

blog.dropbox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 91 posts

Re: Dropbox is going brogue

#13

Post by w1ntermute »

matthewrudy wrote: post #9
w1ntermute wrote: post #8

At first I was wondering why a Chinese translation had been omitted, but then I realized the service was blocked by the Great Firewall.

That's just the 1 billion Chinese in the mainland. What about the 30 million living here in Taiwan and Hong Kong?

That's a smaller target audience than for any of the other languages they've provided translations for so far, so it makes sense that they haven't done it until now.

Re: Dropbox is going brogue

#15

Post by w1ntermute »

skrebbel wrote: post #12
trengof wrote: post #2

Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich Anyone? http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/28/business/Doubl...

I'm disappointed the Dutch Sandwich doesn't get its own native language support, then!

High English fluency in the Netherlands plus a relatively small population makes it less of a priority than other languages.

Re: Dropbox is going brogue

#17

Post by rpm4321 »

marcamillion wrote: post #5
qznc wrote: post #4

Facebook also has its Europe headquarter in Ireland. Something special about the laws there?

I suspect it is for tax purposes....the corporate tax rate in Ireland is 15% I believe - in comparison to 30%+ elsewhere in the West.

12.5, or 10 if you are manufacturing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_tax_in_the_Republic...

Re: Dropbox is going brogue

#18

Post by qq66 »

edowling wrote: post #16
qznc wrote: post #4

Facebook also has its Europe headquarter in Ireland. Something special about the laws there?

Apple recently got into a lot of trouble in Australia after routing earnings through its Ireland operation. http://m.smh.com.au/business/tax-office-takes-285m-bite-out-...

What trouble? They just had to pay back taxes, and they even came out ahead since they didn't have to pay interest on those taxes. This lack of any meaningful punishment is why corporate shenanigans are so common.

Re: Dropbox is going brogue

#20

Post by eoin_murphy »

sargun wrote: post #10
qznc wrote: post #4

Facebook also has its Europe headquarter in Ireland. Something special about the laws there?

The tax story in Ireland is incredible. The corporate tax rate is significantly lower than other nations, and often times, the government is willing to make special concessions, or give tax rebates for companies intending on making long term commitments (Amazon is best known for making these deals).

That and they probably just got a huge grant for putting their first translation in Irish...

But yes, the tax laws in Ireland are incredibly generous, if you're a corporation. I say this as a person just falling into the top tax bracket which means that while most of my wages are taxed at 21% or so (closer to 25%), any bonuses or future wage increases will be taxed at over 50% (once all the levies etc. have been counted in). And there's also the awareness that a significant percentage of that goes towards repaying bondholders in Anglo Irish bank or towards public services who refuse to restructure or update 50 year old work practices. (sorry, rant over)

There is also the fact that it's an English speaking country with a pool of relatively highly educated employees who are used to dealing with American businesses. Wages are relatively low compared to the US or England (well, London anyway) and you can have the best and brightest of Europe can relocate with no visa issues (once you can convince them to relocate to a rainy island in the North Atlantic)

Post reply on HN