Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12) • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#51

Post by dang » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 7:07 PM UTC

api wrote: post #14

rhizome wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of goodwill generation after the whole Condoleeza thing.

So did they dump the Bushevik war-pushing bitch or not?

The combination of inflammatory, if not abusive, language with glib one-liner sarcasm makes for a particularly bad Hacker News comment.

All: When you see a comment that is truly bad for HN, you can flag it by clicking "link" to go to the item page and then "flag" at the top. We monitor those flags and take action based on them.

(My point here has nothing to do with the Iraq War.)

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#52

Post by notastartup » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 7:07 PM UTC

UVB-76 wrote: post #32

This is how it was always going to go. Dropbox's core business is unsustainable, and they can't compete long-term with rivals like Google and Apple. They're flailing in all directions at the moment; pushing for the enterprise/government market with the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, now burning a load of money acquiring businesses offering tangential services, in the hope they can diversify their business model. It…

This almost sounds like Facebook.

Buying virtual reality was the final smoke signal of danger.

Microsoft has a tough time competing with Google and Apple. It has decades of experience and loads of cash to burn and still be standing.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#53

Post by elliott34 » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 7:08 PM UTC

hahahaha ctl-f for "journey"

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#54

Post by sheetjs » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 7:09 PM UTC

rattray wrote: post #36

UVB-76 wrote: post #32

This is how it was always going to go. Dropbox's core business is unsustainable, and they can't compete long-term with rivals like Google and Apple. They're flailing in all directions at the moment; pushing for the enterprise/government market with the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, now burning a load of money acquiring businesses offering tangential services, in the hope they can diversify their business model. It…

I agree and disagree; file sharing alone was never going to be "enough". But even Search wasn't enough for Google; it's not wrong for companies to expand their offerings. In the case of Dropbox, they need to go head-to-head with the Drive/Docs/Apps provision coming from Google. They're not as well-positioned to do that as they could be, and I'm not sure hackpad will be close to sufficient to get them there. But it's…

> They need to go head-to-head with the Drive/Docs/Apps provision coming from Google

If that's really the play, Hackpad isn't the right acquisition. The real value is in the sheets/excel space, and the knowledge of collaborative document editing doesn't naturally translate to spreadsheets (the general nature of edits are not linear)

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#55

Post by mathattack » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 7:10 PM UTC

rattray wrote: post #36

UVB-76 wrote: post #32

This is how it was always going to go. Dropbox's core business is unsustainable, and they can't compete long-term with rivals like Google and Apple. They're flailing in all directions at the moment; pushing for the enterprise/government market with the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, now burning a load of money acquiring businesses offering tangential services, in the hope they can diversify their business model. It…

I agree and disagree; file sharing alone was never going to be "enough". But even Search wasn't enough for Google; it's not wrong for companies to expand their offerings. In the case of Dropbox, they need to go head-to-head with the Drive/Docs/Apps provision coming from Google. They're not as well-positioned to do that as they could be, and I'm not sure hackpad will be close to sufficient to get them there. But it's…

Your point is very true - plan 1 may not be monetizable, but a large user base with a lot of data can open other doors. Facebook is another example - it was never going to just monetize people poking each other with sheep.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#56

Post by notastartup » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 7:10 PM UTC

rattray wrote: post #36

UVB-76 wrote: post #32

This is how it was always going to go. Dropbox's core business is unsustainable, and they can't compete long-term with rivals like Google and Apple. They're flailing in all directions at the moment; pushing for the enterprise/government market with the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, now burning a load of money acquiring businesses offering tangential services, in the hope they can diversify their business model. It…

I agree and disagree; file sharing alone was never going to be "enough". But even Search wasn't enough for Google; it's not wrong for companies to expand their offerings. In the case of Dropbox, they need to go head-to-head with the Drive/Docs/Apps provision coming from Google. They're not as well-positioned to do that as they could be, and I'm not sure hackpad will be close to sufficient to get them there. But it's…

    But even Search wasn't enough for Google; it's not wrong 
    for companies to expand their offerings.

Google has made billions consistently from it's advertising operation. Their shift to other areas have always driven to expand search.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#57

Post by quadrangle » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 7:10 PM UTC

Ugh, Etherpad shoulda been copyleft. Hackpad is a travesty for being so non-transparent that they're just a tweak of Etherpad.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#58

Post by orph » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 7:11 PM UTC

amykhar wrote: post #8

Just a little side note. I really wish people would give an overview of what their service is or does in press releases like this. Quite often, I see 'Facebook bought x' or 'Dropbox bought y' and I click to see what it is, and if I would want to use it. More often than not, there's no little blurb that lets me know what their product even does.

Luckily Hackpad isn't going anywhere so you can go ahead and sign up to try it out :)

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#59

Post by kunle » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 7:14 PM UTC

This is an exceptional deal. The hackpad team is awesome, the product makes sense, and I remember thinking after Box bought Crocodoc, that Hackpad would make sense as part of Dropbox, especially as it went enterprise and started competing with Word, Google Docs etc.

Congrats to the Hackpad team and to Dropbox here. Solid deal.

Re: Dropbox acquires Hackpad (YC W12)

#60

Post by jordanlev » Thu, Apr 17, 2014, 7:14 PM UTC

joshuak wrote: post #39

UVB-76 wrote: post #32

This is how it was always going to go. Dropbox's core business is unsustainable, and they can't compete long-term with rivals like Google and Apple. They're flailing in all directions at the moment; pushing for the enterprise/government market with the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, now burning a load of money acquiring businesses offering tangential services, in the hope they can diversify their business model. It…

Agreed. I'm afraid, the famous quote about Dropbox from Steve Jobs about being a feature not a product is playing out. Dropbox doesn't even own the commodity they sell (as far as I know). They sell you on storage, but you receive a syncing service, not storage. I like dropbox, don't get me wrong, but they need to recognize the core value they brought to the table (and may still have) is better user experience design,…

I agree with you that their core value is a better user experience. In my mind, offering their own apps is actually the natural continuation of this core value -- since the underlying storage is just a commodity, they can differentiate by having really well-designed apps that sit on top of it.