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

Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

fortune.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 192 posts

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#31

Post by usegolang »

nihonde wrote: post #19
JabavuAdams wrote: post #8

I love Dropbox, but where's the growth potential? They do an amazing job of storage and syncing, and as a user I'd love for them to focus on that. Can they use their early success in sync to bootstrap other products? "Evernote" by Dropbox? EDIT> This is an honest question, and I'd appreciate informative replies.

Dropbox Paper is the best implementation of collaborative text editor that I've ever used. I keep going back to it because it's easy to use. I never use Google Docs because Google's account management systems are such a hassle and I hate Material Design.

While I agree that paper is great, I believe this product stemmed for an acquisition of Hackpad, a company with a nearly identical product.

I'm not saying acquisitions can't help them grow, but I wanted to make it clear that this stemmed from an acquisition.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#32

Post by kwijibob »

nihonde wrote: post #19
JabavuAdams wrote: post #8

I love Dropbox, but where's the growth potential? They do an amazing job of storage and syncing, and as a user I'd love for them to focus on that. Can they use their early success in sync to bootstrap other products? "Evernote" by Dropbox? EDIT> This is an honest question, and I'd appreciate informative replies.

Dropbox Paper is the best implementation of collaborative text editor that I've ever used. I keep going back to it because it's easy to use. I never use Google Docs because Google's account management systems are such a hassle and I hate Material Design.

This is absolutely critical. I have a few hundred gig of old data on a paid dropbox. Some old photos and videos etc. Lots of old Word documents.

But everything new I do is on Google Docs and Spreadsheets, which I love. All my photos now go to Google Photos.

The future seems to be google drive like web apps. Dropbox needs to get into this market. I hope Paper can expand...

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#34

Post by usegolang »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #8

I love Dropbox, but where's the growth potential? They do an amazing job of storage and syncing, and as a user I'd love for them to focus on that. Can they use their early success in sync to bootstrap other products? "Evernote" by Dropbox? EDIT> This is an honest question, and I'd appreciate informative replies.

Do they have to?

Sync can still be improved a lot, and I think whoever does it best will be able to take over most of the market. Dropbox's Infinite could potentially do that. https://blogs.dropbox.com/business/2016/04/announcing-projec...

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#35

Post by btown »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #8

I love Dropbox, but where's the growth potential? They do an amazing job of storage and syncing, and as a user I'd love for them to focus on that. Can they use their early success in sync to bootstrap other products? "Evernote" by Dropbox? EDIT> This is an honest question, and I'd appreciate informative replies.

Dropbox actually did have other sync products, such as their now-discontinued Firebase-like Datastore API. https://blogs.dropbox.com/developers/2015/04/deprecating-the...

Their focus is wholly on owning the file management space, with most profit coming from doing so for enterprises. While the Googles and Apples of the world have found significant success in building entire suites of related products and services (including physical), there are plenty of successful public one-trick pony software companies. Dropbox's key has always been the magical quality of their service, and that's as good a reason to be on the focused-side of the spectrum as any.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#36

Post by baron816 »

prklmn wrote: post #21

A major difference between between this tech boom and the dot com boom of the 90s is the general public had a real shot at investing in serious growth potential during the dot com boom. Now most of the growth is experienced under private ownership, then the grossly overvalued company is pawned off for the public to invest in. VCs have figured out how to extract most of the exciting gains.

Whether that wealth is going to the top 1% or to the top .01% doesn't matter so much as far as the welfare of the general public is concerned. I think you could argue that the products that these tech companies are bringing to market are what is really benefiting the general public, much more than any investment returns ever could. And if the current model of investing is most efficient--in terms of generating new products and delivering them to market--then it is better for the public.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#37

Post by 1123581321 »

madengr wrote: post #33

So what's the advantage of Dropbox over FTP? Seriously. I have only used it for sharing large files. What else good is it?

* "It just works" folder syncing (not every FTP client does this, none as well as Dropbox) you can get nearly any colleague or family member using

* Very good online file sharing UI

* And no need to run and secure an FTP server

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#39

Post by rtpg »

madengr wrote: post #33

So what's the advantage of Dropbox over FTP? Seriously. I have only used it for sharing large files. What else good is it?

seamless integration with loads of apps (especially on mobile). Lets you build a "cloud" feature into apps without actually needing servers.

It's not super useful for big stuff, but nice if you're trying to write stuff just for yourself.

Re: Dropbox Is Getting Ready for IPO

#40

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

I used Dropbox for a few years, but ultimately switched to another big-name company service. Consumers now have great options available from all the big-name companies: Amazon Drive, Apple iCloud, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive. Meanwhile, in the enterprise world it looks like Box is dominating.

Given this, I think it's reasonable to ask: what's their value proposition in 2017? I hadn't been following them for a few years, but looking at their landing and pricing page, it's clear they're transitioning away from being a consumer product and focusing on enterprise customers. For those of you that are paying for their consumer offering, I'd be very interested in reading about why you've chosen to stick with em instead of migrating to another service.

Post reply on HN