Dropbox May Have Declined $800 Million Acquisition Offer from Apple

[srobert]

Yup. Heard of them all..
And they are just as likely to occur as a tech site "accidentally" losing your info or having it stolen.

Indeed. But it is very unlikely that the information would be lost at both sites at the same time.

Edit: Peace, after reading my first post again I found it poorly worded. I did not mean to make it sound as if you did not understand the issue. I hope I din't sound rude.

 

[danpass]

If I owned dropbox I'd sell for $1.6B

 

[daverobeson]

Kind of surprised

No one's mentioned the other (I think strong) possibility: the article doesn't mention a timeframe, so it could very well be that the attempted acquisition occurred some time ago. Perhaps Dropbox was going to BE iCloud. It would make a lot of sense for Apple to simply buy a company that already had the quality, cross-platform solution they needed and officially support it as THE way to sync files between devices.

Remember, a great many iOS users aren't Mac users, and developing software for other platforms isn't exactly Apple's strong suit. Something already popular and relatively bulletproof is definitely the ticket. If this rumor is true, it's odd they wouldn't have gone higher than $800 million. Given how much cash they had even a year or two ago, it might have been worth it to pay more. I guess we'll all know soon whether or not developing their own solution (yet again) was the better move.

 

[notjustjay]

I don't understand what the big deal is with "cloud storage". If I want to store stuff I put it on an external drive.

If I want access to it on the road I bring a $20 thumb drive.

One of the ways I use it is to keep an entire hierarchy of files and folders synchronized between multiple people on the same "team" (we are all volunteers with a particular charity). If we were all coworkers, we'd have a shared network drive on a server at work. Dropbox essentially gives us that on our home PCs. Additionally, I can access it on my iPad or iPhone.

We had a budget meeting the other day. The year before we got Dropbox, we crowded around one computer connected to a projector so we could see the file. The following year, everyone could access the file on their own PCs, Macs, iPhones, or iPads. One person was designated to record changes to the file as we went along. Whenever she saved it, Dropbox synced with all of our devices and we all instantly saw the updated version.

Sure, we can do without it if we need to, but it makes it incredibly convenient to be able to access anything, anytime, anywhere.

 

[foobarbaz]

Why would they do that?

They would pay a lot of money for a) software they themselves could write right into the OS, b) infrastructure they wouldn't continue to use (on amazon) and c) a lot of Windows and Linux users they don't want to keep.

Which of that exactly would be worth $800 million?

 

[ouimetnick]

Who knows what Apple would have done with Dropbox... especially with it being multi platform.

Yeah. They killed Lala. I loved that thing. It was free too. Now its not the same, and it costs $25.

 

[mountains]

Why would they do that?

They would pay a lot of money for a) software they themselves could write right into the OS, b) infrastructure they wouldn't continue to use (on amazon) and c) a lot of Windows and Linux users they don't want to keep.

Which of that exactly would be worth $800 million?

Having a potentially dominant position in consumer cloud storage could be extremely profitable. Even if you're making money off those darned Windows and Linux users (who I'm sure Apple would love to make money off of).

Dropbox's valuation since this deal, though, almost makes Apple look like they were trying to lowball Dropbox.

 

[negativzero]

Dropbox used to be good. But I think it's now too big for it's own good without enough scaling and the network is now slow as molasses.

 

[ct2k7]

Dropbox used to be good. But I think it's now too big for it's own good without enough scaling and the network is now slow as molasses.

It uses Amazon S3, so I suppose Amazon could be to blame... Maybe they should scale into... Microsoft Azure as well

 

[kas23]

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Who knows what Apple would have done with Dropbox... especially with it being multi platform.

Yeah. They killed Lala. I loved that thing. It was free too. Now its not the same, and it costs $25.

I'm glad they declined. It's true, Apple would've bought them just to shut them down as they will be iCloud's only legit competition. Others would have surly popped-up, but nothing comes close to iCloud. I'm actually still looking for reasons to migrate from Dropbox to iCloud once it is introduced. Apple's acquisition of Dropbox would've made this a simple decision.

 

[ct2k7]

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I'm glad they declined. It's true, Apple would've bought them just to shut them down as they will be iCloud's only legit competition. Others would have surly popped-up, but nothing comes close to iCloud. I'm actually still looking for reasons to migrate from Dropbox to iCloud once it is introduced. Apple's acquisition of Dropbox would've made this a simple decision.

Unfortunately, until (if) iCloud offers accessible basic file management, it's still going nowhere for me.

 

[MasterHowl]

Dropbox <3

 

[spazzcat]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)



I'm glad they declined. It's true, Apple would've bought them just to shut them down as they will be iCloud's only legit competition. Others would have surly popped-up, but nothing comes close to iCloud. I'm actually still looking for reasons to migrate from Dropbox to iCloud once it is introduced. Apple's acquisition of Dropbox would've made this a simple decision.

iCloud is kind of automatic with iOS5. And apps can have iCloud built in. Also, app data doesn't get counted in your free 5GB.

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Unfortunately, until (if) iCloud offers accessible basic file management, it's still going nowhere for me.

It has file managment, you can even look at the files on your iOS device

 

[rhett7660]

I am glad Dropbox turned them down. Apple would of screwed it up. Part of what makes Dropbox so powerful is the fact that it is platform independent.

The share folders that work with anyone who has an account not with people who own Apple products. Also like hell would Apple support Android, WP7 and Blackberry. It would be Apple products only.

Dropbox was smart enough to understand long term turning down Apple was a great idea because it never would of really gotten off the ground if Apple bought them.

You are right. Apple has never supported products for other platforms.

Very interesting None the less.

 

[ct2k7]

iCloud is kind of automatic with iOS5. And apps can have iCloud built in. Also, app data doesn't get counted in your free 5GB.

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It has file managment, you can even look at the files on your iOS device

Image

How do I upload audio files and other files such as executables?

 

[McGiord]

I suspect that this type of acquisitions are not always the best for the end users, and many times the product looses its original intent.

I am still wondering what will happen with Skype.

Sadly Apple has not flawlessly implemented remote communications: iChat, MobileMe, FaceTime, and so on...
I just hope that iCloud will be better than all these, faster and reliable.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

You are right. Apple has never supported products for other platforms.

Very interesting None the less.

Well lets be fair. Any time Apple has supported software on a non Apple OS it has been to sell Apple software.

iTunes was all about the iPod and since then they have added more into it hardware wise. Safari was I think the biggest thing that not directly related to Apple hardware.

Dropbox would be limited to Apple only stuff. Lets be fair no way in hell they would support dropbox the way it is now and it would not be even a 10th of how great it is now. Dropbox's greatest thing is it works on well everything.

 

[tshort]

iDisk to DropBox

As many others have done, I moved to DropBox when I heard that iDisk was going the way of the do-do. iDisk was useful, but slow. DropBox seems much faster.

While I'd love to have more OS/iOS integration with DropBox, it does what I need.

My only use for iDisk is iBank mobile sync - which I haven't used in a while.

 

[APlotdevice]

iCloud is kind of automatic with iOS5. And apps can have iCloud built in. Also, app data doesn't get counted in your free 5GB.

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It has file managment, you can even look at the files on your iOS device

Image

Can other apps see compatible file types?

 

[benpatient]

I don't understand what the big deal is with "cloud storage". If I want to store stuff I put it on an external drive.

If I want access to it on the road I bring a $20 thumb drive.

you plug a thumb drive into your cell phone?

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Dropbox used to be good. But I think it's now too big for it's own good without enough scaling and the network is now slow as molasses.

Funny, I uploaded a 200MB file just about 10 minutes ago (completely new file, not something they could have on their servers already) in 2 minutes.

It was on my laptop, wirelessly, 2 minutes after that.

How fast is it supposed to be, really?

 

[roadbloc]

you plug a thumb drive into your cell phone?

Other than Music and Pictures, what else would you want on your phone? Yeah, we all know that we can now create iMovie files and Pages documents and Keynote presentations on our mobiles now, but who actually does that with serious intent? Very little.

There is nothing wrong with just plugging a cable from your phone and computer and dragging some files. I find it way easier than managing a 'cloud.'

As for the thread, good for Dropbox. I'm glad they haven't sold their soul.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

I think this is an acknowledgement by Apple that iDisk was sub-par (for an Apple product), unreliable and unsalvageable. Apple's solution was to buy a company with a product that "Just worked".

$4 billion sounds to me like an over-valuation of a company with a rumoured $100 million turnover. So Apple won't be able to buy Dropbox any time soon. Which is a shame. Apple needs to learn a thing or two about file synching. There current efforts are good (the discontinued iDisk aside), but it could be a LOT better. Even their efforts with iCal synching (which are much improved) still leave a lot to be desired.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Funny, I uploaded a 200MB file just about 10 minutes ago (completely new file, not something they could have on their servers already) in 2 minutes.

It was on my laptop, wirelessly, 2 minutes after that.

How fast is it supposed to be, really?

In my experience I find drop box upload to be around maybe 0.5 Mps. That would put it at around 50 kbs which is not to bad. It only suck when you have huge uploads/downloads but for the most part it is pretty good since most of the files are smaller in size. I am dreading the next time I turn on my desktop as it the dropbox folder is pretty out dated in the range of at least a gig worth of crap but that will take just some time to update. It really only the first time you add a new computer and the mass upload/download happens.

 

[gnomeisland]

Now we look at OS X Lion and 'AirDrop' seems like Apple's idea to having a Dropbox like program, at least for now. I for one have never used it, nor will I.

Actually, while I have not jumped to Lion yet, I'm pretty sure AirDrop fulfills a totally different need. AirDrop is about near effortless file transfer among computers on the same LAN. The DropBox Public folder *can* be used this way but it is a lot less efficient since you have to email/IM the link to the other party and it requires an internet connection to at least authenticate. I believe there is a PC/Windows equivalent to AirDrop and the tech is built on an Intel foundation(?) just with Apple's re-branding. Could be wrong about the last part, pretty sure I'm right about the first.

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In my experience I find drop box upload to be around maybe 0.5 Mps. That would put it at around 50 kbs which is not to bad. It only suck when you have huge uploads/downloads but for the most part it is pretty good since most of the files are smaller in size. I am dreading the next time I turn on my desktop as it the dropbox folder is pretty out dated in the range of at least a gig worth of crap but that will take just some time to update. It really only the first time you add a new computer and the mass upload/download happens.

When I had a symmetric 25mbps connection (sigh, I miss those days) dropbox would peak at 2-3mbps and stay stable around 1-1.5mbps uploads. Also, I *did* have a pro account back then so that could be the difference.

 

[cactus33]

This would be absolutely great! I would love to see better Dropbox I regrading on my iPad. At the moment it is so tedious to send Pages, Keynote and Numbers files fro iPad to Mac. If only apple owned dropbox.............,