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Of course, now the question is: what are they going to do with this $250M? The only new feature that has really come out of Dropbox recently is the API, and eve

Of course, now the question is: what are they going to do with this $250M? The only new feature that has really come out of Dropbox recently is the API, and even that has been in development for some time.

makira 15y ago
Customer acquisition ?
leftnode 15y ago
A new datacenter.
- thematt 15y ago
  That would be a huge distraction. If they're already profitable (according to Forbes) with the current model, they should focus on the product and customer acquisition, not cost-cutting.
  - mchusma 15y ago
    The cost savings would be pretty massive for a company this size. This is not a trivial aspect to the business, but a way to get significant profitability gains.
FilterJoe 15y ago
As a paying Dropbox user, one of the things I most appreciate about them is how they are slow and cautious about rolling out new features, placing more importance on keeping the software stable, reliable, and reasonably fast. I also use Evernote, which is a stark contrast. They roll out new features so quickly that it usually has many bugs and I have to learn a new interface ever year. I don't trust Evernote with anything critical (and I don't pay them) as a result. Just miscellaneous notes (To be fair, the Windows client finally seems to be stable and without any more glaring bugs). One simple thing they could do with the $250m is to simply scale the business. They have had the same price structure in place from the start and are perceived as somewhat expensive at this point as competitors continue to lower prices. Lowering Dropbox prices will attract more paying customers which I'm guessing could be economical if they were 5-10x their current size.
suking 15y ago
founder liquidity!
brlewis 15y ago
The fresh money will be used for acquisitions, strategic partnerships and the recruitment of new people, the company said in a statement. I'm hoping for more work on the web API: OAuth2, sending/accepting shared folder requests, push notifications of file updates.
thematt 15y ago
They could make a land grab for enterprise users. There's tons of stuff you could do with that money to make Dropbox attractive to corporations.
- mikepurvis 15y ago
  This one. Making Dropbox more friendly to small-medium businesses: a black-box "dropbox appliance" you put on your LAN (or just the software, in a nice neat Ubuntu package to replace Samba), selective sync and access-management, user groups, encryption, etc.
j_col 15y ago
Thought the same thing myself, that is a massive amount of money for a company like this.
gravitronic 15y ago
They needed all this money so they could implement read-only folder sharing. (I kid, I kid, huge dropbox fan here ;) )
- Talon 15y ago
  You didn't see the Gizmodo featured comment on the sharing model?
ph0rque 15y ago
I hope they buy AeroFS and integrate it into dropbox, giving it a P2P component.

makira 15y ago

Customer acquisition ?

leftnode 15y ago

A new datacenter.

thematt 15y ago
That would be a huge distraction. If they're already profitable (according to Forbes) with the current model, they should focus on the product and customer acquisition, not cost-cutting.
- mchusma 15y ago
  The cost savings would be pretty massive for a company this size. This is not a trivial aspect to the business, but a way to get significant profitability gains.

FilterJoe 15y ago

As a paying Dropbox user, one of the things I most appreciate about them is how they are slow and cautious about rolling out new features, placing more importance on keeping the software stable, reliable, and reasonably fast. I also use Evernote, which is a stark contrast. They roll out new features so quickly that it usually has many bugs and I have to learn a new interface ever year. I don't trust Evernote with anything critical (and I don't pay them) as a result. Just miscellaneous notes (To be fair, the Windows client finally seems to be stable and without any more glaring bugs). One simple thing they could do with the $250m is to simply scale the business. They have had the same price structure in place from the start and are perceived as somewhat expensive at this point as competitors continue to lower prices. Lowering Dropbox prices will attract more paying customers which I'm guessing could be economical if they were 5-10x their current size.

suking 15y ago

founder liquidity!

brlewis 15y ago

The fresh money will be used for acquisitions, strategic partnerships and the recruitment of new people, the company said in a statement. I'm hoping for more work on the web API: OAuth2, sending/accepting shared folder requests, push notifications of file updates.

thematt 15y ago

They could make a land grab for enterprise users. There's tons of stuff you could do with that money to make Dropbox attractive to corporations.

mikepurvis 15y ago
This one. Making Dropbox more friendly to small-medium businesses: a black-box "dropbox appliance" you put on your LAN (or just the software, in a nice neat Ubuntu package to replace Samba), selective sync and access-management, user groups, encryption, etc.

j_col 15y ago

Thought the same thing myself, that is a massive amount of money for a company like this.

gravitronic 15y ago

They needed all this money so they could implement read-only folder sharing. (I kid, I kid, huge dropbox fan here ;) )

Talon 15y ago
You didn't see the Gizmodo featured comment on the sharing model?

ph0rque 15y ago

I hope they buy AeroFS and integrate it into dropbox, giving it a P2P component.