5 ms·

What's with the absurd valuation? Are they gonna bump the price to $10 and hope to sell 10 million copies? Do they hope adding a mail client to Dropbox will b

by moe 14y ago

What's with the absurd valuation? Are they gonna bump the price to $10 and hope to sell 10 million copies? Do they hope adding a mail client to Dropbox will bring them.. um.. how many million new customers? Is it some sort of tax evasion scheme? Or do they plan to flip it to the next bigger idiot for $200mio? Or what, the hell, is the idea here? I'd really like to understand the rationale behind these kind of deals. Who profits from doing that?

argonaut 14y ago
What's with the absurd comment? We don't even know if the valuation is $100 million. "Well-over" $50 million could be $60 million. I'd reserve my judgement until the final number is confirmed. Maybe the final number is $100 million. Maybe not. When a reporter says "And we’ve heard" you can translate that to they heard a rumor. Is it some sort of tax evasion scheme? Are you intentionally throwing out absurdities? In a certain light, this acquisition might make sense from a strategic, rather than ROI, point of view: my guess is that Dropbox thinks Mailbox will be the email app for mobile, just as Gmail became the the email web service for Google. Gmail doesn't really turn any significant profit AFAIK, yet Gmail makes sense because it strategically anchors Google's entire ecosystem. In that sense, Mailbox might become part of an ecosystem of productivity/collaboration tools that Dropbox creates.
- moe 14y ago
  "Well-over" $50 million could be $60 million You say that as if $60 million would be any less absurd? Is it some sort of tax evasion scheme? Are you intentionally throwing out absurdities? No. Companies tend to do really weird[1] things to avoid taxes. I'm honestly trying to wrap my head around these kind of deals (color was the textbook example, but it's not like there's a shortage on them). [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-twist-in-stricken-rig-saga-shell-was-moving-it-to-avoid-tax-8439128.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-twist-i...
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    > "You say that as if $60 million would be any less absurd?" I find neither price absurd. It is clear that Dropbox has not bought Mailbox for the purposes of selling copies of Mailbox - making $100mm back that way is, of course, insanity. Dropbox right now is having its core feature (online storage) attacked by competitors with far-reaching and deeply integrated stacks. See: iCloud, Google, etc, where the cloud storage is deeply integrated specific content on your device. Photos, documents, email, etc. It would seem like they're trying to develop this stack for themselves and take on Google and Apple directly. Whether or not this is the right strategy I cannot say, but a cloud email service with a best-of-breed UI will certainly help them cement the market share they need. And having seen Mailbox, it's very competitive with what is IMO the next-best mobile email client, GMail, and takes iOS's Mail.app out back and shoots it. I expect the next moves to be either developing or acquiring media sharing (photos, videos, etc) apps. This is the sort of ecosystem they need to create to hope to sell Dropbox as the "your data, everywhere, without lock-in" value proposition. Mailbox isn't just a half-decent email UI, it is the best email UI we've seen in ages, in a field where there is no shortage of competition. Even vaunted Apple's email app pales in comparison.
    - citizens 14y ago
      > And having seen Mailbox, it's very competitive with what is IMO the next-best mobile email client, GMail But Mailbox only works with GMail email accounts. I wonder how many users Mailbox would have if Google shut them off.
      - pbiggar 14y ago
        I don't think Google can realistically do that, both from a tech and a PR standpoint.
        makomk 14y ago
        I didn't think that Google could realistically drop CalDAV either until they did.
- bentcorner 14y ago
  > my guess is that Dropbox thinks Mailbox will be the email app for mobile I hate to pile on with the normal negative-nancy comments on HN, but I have a hard time seeing this happen. What does Mailbox offer that makes it compelling? The slide left/right mechanic is kind of neat, and I replaced my default Mail.app's location because of that, but the need for sync-on-open almost kills it for me. Don't get me wrong - it's a very pretty app, but I'd be hard pressed to pay more than $0.99 for it (I suppose the same goes for Sparrow - I paid money for that, and even if it wasn't consumed by Google I'm not sure if I would have paid it again). iOS's environment does not lend itself well to 3rd party mail clients. Maybe Dropbox sees that changing in the future?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mrich 14y ago
> tax evasion scheme That is the most logical explanation up to now :)
damoncali 14y ago
I suspect faulty financial journalism.
nikcub 14y ago
> Are they gonna bump the price to $10 and hope to sell 10 million copies? Surely you don't really believe that is how companies are valued
- timmm 14y ago
  There ought to be some objectivity to it, no?
- tatsuke95 14y ago
  >"Surely you don't really believe that is how companies are valued" Could you explain how some of these companies are, in fact, valued then? There are a ton with seemingly random valuations.

by moe 14y ago

argonaut 14y ago

What's with the absurd comment? We don't even know if the valuation is $100 million. "Well-over" $50 million could be $60 million. I'd reserve my judgement until the final number is confirmed. Maybe the final number is $100 million. Maybe not. When a reporter says "And we’ve heard" you can translate that to they heard a rumor. Is it some sort of tax evasion scheme? Are you intentionally throwing out absurdities? In a certain light, this acquisition might make sense from a strategic, rather than ROI, point of view: my guess is that Dropbox thinks Mailbox will be the email app for mobile, just as Gmail became the the email web service for Google. Gmail doesn't really turn any significant profit AFAIK, yet Gmail makes sense because it strategically anchors Google's entire ecosystem. In that sense, Mailbox might become part of an ecosystem of productivity/collaboration tools that Dropbox creates.

moe 14y ago
"Well-over" $50 million could be $60 million You say that as if $60 million would be any less absurd? Is it some sort of tax evasion scheme? Are you intentionally throwing out absurdities? No. Companies tend to do really weird[1] things to avoid taxes. I'm honestly trying to wrap my head around these kind of deals (color was the textbook example, but it's not like there's a shortage on them). [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-twist-in-stricken-rig-saga-shell-was-moving-it-to-avoid-tax-8439128.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-twist-i...
- potatolicious 14y ago
  > "You say that as if $60 million would be any less absurd?" I find neither price absurd. It is clear that Dropbox has not bought Mailbox for the purposes of selling copies of Mailbox - making $100mm back that way is, of course, insanity. Dropbox right now is having its core feature (online storage) attacked by competitors with far-reaching and deeply integrated stacks. See: iCloud, Google, etc, where the cloud storage is deeply integrated specific content on your device. Photos, documents, email, etc. It would seem like they're trying to develop this stack for themselves and take on Google and Apple directly. Whether or not this is the right strategy I cannot say, but a cloud email service with a best-of-breed UI will certainly help them cement the market share they need. And having seen Mailbox, it's very competitive with what is IMO the next-best mobile email client, GMail, and takes iOS's Mail.app out back and shoots it. I expect the next moves to be either developing or acquiring media sharing (photos, videos, etc) apps. This is the sort of ecosystem they need to create to hope to sell Dropbox as the "your data, everywhere, without lock-in" value proposition. Mailbox isn't just a half-decent email UI, it is the best email UI we've seen in ages, in a field where there is no shortage of competition. Even vaunted Apple's email app pales in comparison.
  - citizens 14y ago
    > And having seen Mailbox, it's very competitive with what is IMO the next-best mobile email client, GMail But Mailbox only works with GMail email accounts. I wonder how many users Mailbox would have if Google shut them off.
    - pbiggar 14y ago
      I don't think Google can realistically do that, both from a tech and a PR standpoint.
      - makomk 14y ago
        I didn't think that Google could realistically drop CalDAV either until they did.
bentcorner 14y ago
> my guess is that Dropbox thinks Mailbox will be the email app for mobile I hate to pile on with the normal negative-nancy comments on HN, but I have a hard time seeing this happen. What does Mailbox offer that makes it compelling? The slide left/right mechanic is kind of neat, and I replaced my default Mail.app's location because of that, but the need for sync-on-open almost kills it for me. Don't get me wrong - it's a very pretty app, but I'd be hard pressed to pay more than $0.99 for it (I suppose the same goes for Sparrow - I paid money for that, and even if it wasn't consumed by Google I'm not sure if I would have paid it again). iOS's environment does not lend itself well to 3rd party mail clients. Maybe Dropbox sees that changing in the future?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mrich 14y ago

> tax evasion scheme That is the most logical explanation up to now :)

damoncali 14y ago

I suspect faulty financial journalism.

nikcub 14y ago

> Are they gonna bump the price to $10 and hope to sell 10 million copies? Surely you don't really believe that is how companies are valued

timmm 14y ago
There ought to be some objectivity to it, no?
tatsuke95 14y ago
>"Surely you don't really believe that is how companies are valued" Could you explain how some of these companies are, in fact, valued then? There are a ton with seemingly random valuations.