Ease of use of Dropbox

Dropbox CEO Dru Houston on the cover of Forbes magazine, dubbed "the next Spoiler".

Lead: In the Sunday, foreign media said that in the past when Google introduced new products, Silicon Valley start-ups with similar products often feel pressure. But the situation has changed a lot in the near future when Google launched Google Drive online storage service. Dropbox even joked that the company was about to launch a search engine.

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April 24, Google launched a much-anticipated Google Drive service to help users store files online and sync between different devices. However, Dropbox CEO Dru Houston, a file-sharing service, then responded on Twitter by saying: "Another piece of news, Dropbox will launch a search engine." ”

Another cloud storage service provider, box, held a party in Manhattan on April 25. The company's CEO, Aaron Levie, and other people at the party Allon Levi, seems to have not been Google's launch of Google Drive news too much impact.

Houston and Levi have the strength to remain confident. Their company attracts Silicon Valley's best-known investors and tens of millions of of users. Investors such as Sequoia Capital, Greylock and U2, the lead singer Bono (Bono), invested $257 million in Dropbox, making the company valued at $4 billion. and box previously attracted 162 million of dollars of investment from companies such as Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Andreessen Horowitz.

User-Required Technology

Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Managing director Josh Stern (Josh Stein), said: "This is a technology that everyone needs, just like telephones, web browsers and emails, and there are not too many similar products in the market." ”

Box and Dropbox, as well as big companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, are vying for a future computing market. Every year, people produce more photos, videos, Word documents, and other documents. The data is distributed across mobile phones, tablets, computers and other devices. Start-ups and large companies involved in this area want to be central consoles with all this information.

File sharing Services FolderShare, former chief technology officer Tom Kleinpite Tom Kleinpeter, said: "All of these companies see the future trend that user devices will be the gateway to all content that users get." Anyone with these content would be a huge advantage. ”

FolderShare was founded in 2002 and was acquired by Microsoft in 2005. The company's development suggests that this seemingly simple business still has many problems to solve in its development process. "One of our biggest mistakes is to get people to do whatever they want," says Kleinpite. "In fact, many users lack the basic concept of synchronization, that their computers need to be networked to transfer files."

Ease of use of Dropbox

Dropbox was founded in 2007, and the company adopted a relatively simple approach. When a user installs a desktop or mobile application, the service creates a separate folder on the device on which the installation is applied, that is, a "Dropbox". Any files stored in this folder can be synchronized to other devices.

Dropbox creates a file backup on all devices and on the server. This means that users can work offline and synchronize when they are networked. Dropbox's servers come from Amazon.

Kleinpite also said: "Dropbox very smart to adopt a single folder approach." "At present, the service has more than 50 million users, but the company did not disclose the number of users of paid services."

Last week, Dropbox announced an electronic partnership with Samsung. In the future, Samsung Electronics Android smartphones and tablets will be preloaded with Dropbox applications. The company had previously reached a similar agreement with HTC and Sony Ericsson.

Box aims at the enterprise market

Unlike Dropbox, Box is not very focused on the consumer market. Levy argues that competition with Google and Microsoft in the consumer market will bring a price war. box is primarily aimed at business users in the office.

The company spends 15 dollars a month on each employee, allowing employees to store any file in box, whether it's a PowerPoint presentation, a photo of a marketing campaign, or a legal document. With the box tool, the user can choose to collaborate with the specified other person to edit the document.

At the Manhattan Gathering, Levi showcased "box Innovation Network", a series of third-party apps built on box storage and collaborative editing services. For example, when a user modifies a document on the ipad, you can connect directly to box and send the final result to a co-worker or LinkedIn contact without having to use e-mail.

Levi-Strauss highlighted Box's "post-PC Age" feature. By integrating mobile and desktop computing, he argues, Box could eventually replace the traditional business software developed by some big companies. In the past, says Levy, you won't be fired for buying IBM products, but "we are moving to a new world where you will be fired for buying IBM products."

refusal to buy

Dropbox and Box have rejected other companies ' takeover proposals. Citrix, for example, has offered to buy box at more than 500 million dollars, but has been rejected. The two companies said they wanted to remain independent and to prepare for IPOs (IPO).

Such ambitions also make it necessary for two startups to offer better services than big companies. Currently, Dropbox offers 2GB of free storage space, less than Google's 5GB and Microsoft's 7GB. And Google and Microsoft charge services are cheaper. Dropbox and Box want users to focus not only on storage capacity. Box currently emphasizes the compelling security and collaboration features for enterprise users, while Dropbox highlights the ease of service.

"The general philosophy of Dropbox is that if you can reduce the choices that users make, it's OK to write extra code," says Tom Meyers, a former senior software engineer at Dropbox. You don't want the user to make any decisions. "Especially the decision whether to replace the other services. (D-Gold)

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)