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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 unt

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.
        pbiggar 14y ago
        Not a reasonable comparison, IMO.
      - lzimm 14y ago
        or, of course, there also exists the rebuttal that, uhh, there's no reason mailbox can't work with things that aren't gmail.....
        coldtea 14y ago
        Except if, uhhh, they have made too many assumption on Gmail features being available, so that from the backend to the UI layer, it needs a good, over-through, rewrite to work with anything more standard.
        justincormack 14y ago
        Gmail has spent a lot of time making it work well with web mail clients, be fast etc. Other people have not done this much in general, they would probably have to buy someone.
- baddox 14y ago
  > No. Companies tend to do really weird[1] things to avoid taxes. Sure, but a large tech company buying a small tech company is hardly a "really weird thing."
- coldtea 14y ago
  >You say that as if $60 million would be any less absurd? Well, if you are used to McDonalds salaries it might be a lot of cash. But in the world of startup acquisitions it's neither here, nor there. It depends on the strategic vision for the app. For perspective, an iPhone $1 dollar game can make $20 million dollar per year if it's on the top ten. And even in the top 50 it can still make a sweet million per year (or more). For a popular top-five paid app, the sky's the limit. Especially if it can also migrate to the Mac, Android, and even Windows (which Dropbox does cover).
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?

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.
      - pbiggar 14y ago
        Not a reasonable comparison, IMO.
    - lzimm 14y ago
      or, of course, there also exists the rebuttal that, uhh, there's no reason mailbox can't work with things that aren't gmail.....
      - coldtea 14y ago
        Except if, uhhh, they have made too many assumption on Gmail features being available, so that from the backend to the UI layer, it needs a good, over-through, rewrite to work with anything more standard.
      - justincormack 14y ago
        Gmail has spent a lot of time making it work well with web mail clients, be fast etc. Other people have not done this much in general, they would probably have to buy someone.
baddox 14y ago
> No. Companies tend to do really weird[1] things to avoid taxes. Sure, but a large tech company buying a small tech company is hardly a "really weird thing."
coldtea 14y ago
>You say that as if $60 million would be any less absurd? Well, if you are used to McDonalds salaries it might be a lot of cash. But in the world of startup acquisitions it's neither here, nor there. It depends on the strategic vision for the app. For perspective, an iPhone $1 dollar game can make $20 million dollar per year if it's on the top ten. And even in the top 50 it can still make a sweet million per year (or more). For a popular top-five paid app, the sky's the limit. Especially if it can also migrate to the Mac, Android, and even Windows (which Dropbox does cover).

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?