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Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

nytimes.com

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Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#141

Post by jkmcf »

rikkus wrote: post #97

Reasons it's still in the game: 1. It works, with fewer problems than any other sync / cloud storage that I've used. 2. It has enough people using it outside of work that it's getting paying business customers (the Linux effect?) If either of these falters (if 1 falters, 2 does too) then they'll be gone. There are plenty of competitors and some even do sync well enough that people will use them. I'm rather upset that…

3. Integration

They were the first dominant syncing solution. Practically everything needing this feature has integrated DB. Beyond DB, the competition is a mix of Google Drive and iCloud, and maybe something else. Maybe if iOS and Android had centralized the interface to these types of features, DB would have gone away years ago, or adapted to the market.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#142

Post by cjensen »

Scarblac wrote: post #82
cjensen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and I'm also a happy customer of Dropbox. But how long will it be until OneDrive or iCloud Drive catch up? I have 1TB of OneDrive space for "free" with Office. I have plenty of spare space in my iCloud storage plan. If either of those two options catch up to Dropbox's reliability, why would I stay with Dropbox? Long term, why will Dropbox survive?

Dropbox is much cheaper than either Office or an Apple device.

In addition to the points made by 'thesimon' about OneDrive pricing:

Apple's cloud storage offering includes 50GB ($12/year), and 200GB ($36/year) tiers. I'd bet 99% of Dropbox users could fit in one of those tiers and save a lot of money.

I have a 1TB OneDrive and 200GB iCloud, but I spend money on Dropbox because I trust them to be reliable. If the others catch up on reliability, where is the path for Dropbox's survival? (They're smart guys, so I'm sure they've thought about it)

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#143

Post by tootie »

vlucas wrote: post #126

I really don't understand all the negative Dropbox sentiment these days. Who cares if the investors aren't getting a 10x return? How does that materially affect you as a customer? Why are you even cheering for that anyways? I am a very happy paying Dropbox customer. It's a solid product that does the job very well and isn't stuffed with a bunch of other useless features I don't need. It's pretty much perfect.

My last two companies invested heavily in dropbox and both ditched it for box.com within 2 years. Dropbox is "growing" their business while they're getting beaten on value by more than one competitor.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#144

Post by freehunter »

dominotw wrote: post #137
malchow wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if -- hold your breath! -- Dropbox is simply a medium-sized, privately held, profit-generating company that will end up satisfying a certain customer segment and paying dividends to investors? The horror!

>Dropbox is simply a medium-sized, privately held, profit-generating company that will end up satisfying a certain customer segment and paying dividends to investors? The horror! reply how well did that work out for basecamp? They could have been the next slack if they had not stuck to their stupid philosophy of staying small.

Is Basecamp in trouble or out of business? Not everyone needs to be huge, and it's not always profitable to grow out of control. Sometimes the costs of growth exceed the additional profits. Sometime to pivot to a market that doesn't actually exist. But sometimes you make some pretty decent money with a pretty decent profit, even if it's not exciting.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#145

Post by freehunter »

gdilla wrote: post #84
Spooky23 wrote: post #68

> Dropbox is not laying off workers or shrinking; it hired nearly 500 people last year, 75 since the start of this year, and it plans to soon move into a sprawling, custom-designed office building for which it has signed a long-term lease. Honest question: WTF are they doing?

Sales by far dominates their open reqs. https://www.dropbox.com/jobs/all

Trying to catch up to Box in the enterprise market. Box is all over the corporate world.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#146

Post by dominotw »

freehunter wrote: post #144
dominotw wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Dropbox is simply a medium-sized, privately held, profit-generating company that will end up satisfying a certain customer segment and paying dividends to investors? The horror! reply how well did that work out for basecamp? They could have been the next slack if they had not stuck to their stupid philosophy of staying small.

Is Basecamp in trouble or out of business? Not everyone needs to be huge, and it's not always profitable to grow out of control. Sometimes the costs of growth exceed the additional profits. Sometime to pivot to a market that doesn't actually exist. But sometimes you make some pretty decent money with a pretty decent profit, even if it's not exciting.

> Not everyone needs to be huge

But we are specifically talking about dropbox here.

I am sure they were not exactly aiming to "be small" raising million of dollars in multiple investment rounds.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#147

Post by jsmeaton »

morgante wrote: post #103
huac wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jira isn't VC-backed either ;)

Yes it is. They raised $60M from Accel. [0] [0] http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/07/14/accel-invests-60-mill...

Wasn't that just to bank and cash out employee stock? They could hand that back if need be.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#148

Post by Spooky23 »

shasta wrote: post #86
Spooky23 wrote: post #68

> Dropbox is not laying off workers or shrinking; it hired nearly 500 people last year, 75 since the start of this year, and it plans to soon move into a sprawling, custom-designed office building for which it has signed a long-term lease. Honest question: WTF are they doing?

I expect they're going to branch out into physical storage. Prediction: by 2020, there will be thousands of DropBox locations where you can rent space ranging from a small locker to a large garage. If they're smart, they'll start in rural areas.

Yuck. Support nightmare.

In enterprise, about a dozen vendors do it already.

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#149

Post by vidoc »

Spooky23 wrote: post #68

> Dropbox is not laying off workers or shrinking; it hired nearly 500 people last year, 75 since the start of this year, and it plans to soon move into a sprawling, custom-designed office building for which it has signed a long-term lease. Honest question: WTF are they doing?

They are in the catering industry and serve some of the best food in SOMA!

Re: Dropbox May Not Be LeBron James, but Is Still in the Game

#150

Post by Spooky23 »

saumil13 wrote: post #125
Spooky23 wrote: post #68

> Dropbox is not laying off workers or shrinking; it hired nearly 500 people last year, 75 since the start of this year, and it plans to soon move into a sprawling, custom-designed office building for which it has signed a long-term lease. Honest question: WTF are they doing?

Why i like and dislike DBX (note: i'm completely on AAPL ecosystem in HW): + sync works better than any other out there + its quick in sync esp between other machines in same network + sharing folders and links is much easier than other including iCloud + developer adaptation is high on mobile apps which is turning out to be increasingly valuable last year or so - expensive and limitation of option plans - extremely…

I can't blame Dropbox for the Microsoft thing -- Microsoft hasn't figured that out in a decade in SharePoint.

Mostly DBX makes me sad, as there is so much potential there. I also find it frustrating that they cannot come up with a pricing model that allows me to actually give them money.

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