What's Dropbox going to do now?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3893076

by sudhirj • 14 years ago

10 20 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Now that Google Drive is out, what's Dropbox's differentiator? Google seems to be offering more space, possible better integration, tie ups with Google Docs (both online and offline) and possibly more speed.

It is possible Dropbox is prepared for this? What kind of plan could they carry out to stay in the race?

tzaman2• 14 years ago

I'm not sure I understand why people are so intimidated by Google. So what if they enter the same niche someone else is in. The way I see it, Dropbox has been around for years and thus having a lof of experience when it comes to usability and users' needs. Google needs to catch up - though I doubt they'll ever really be on par with Dropbox (apart from disk space) - Google has never been known for good user experience (minus the search functionality, which is good)

salvadornav• 14 years ago

I totally disagree with your last statement. Google Search, GMail, Google Analytics are all examples of great user experience (although I don't like GMail's redesign). To most people Dropbox is just a folder where they can put files that need to access from different places/devices, so I am a bit skeptic regarding the value of Dropbox "experience know-how". With more space, Google Docs integration and probably GMail and G+ integration as well, DB should at least be worried.

tzaman2• 14 years ago

I have many clients whom I set up Google Analytics for. The don't have a clue how to use it. Even after several courses.

Go ahead and do some (non web-savvy) user testing on that and prove me wrong.

matthewsinclair• 14 years ago

It would seem that as things stand, DropBox has a big lead in the race to offer sensible terms and conditions.

sudhirj3• 14 years ago

If by sensible terms and conditions, you mean zero access and indexing of documents, then I think Google might offer that on business accounts.

sirwanqutbi• 14 years ago

google will eventually suck everyone in through uniting all the services... thats where anti-competition laws should take action.

israelyc2• 14 years ago

This is great - Dropbox are doing only one thing and they're great at it. The way I see it it's like Google is a restaurant that sells Italian and Mexican, and Dropbox is just Italian - where would you go to eat?

And with the competition, Dropbox will focus more on monetizing enterprise users and in order to keep the individual users it will at least match the space that Google is offering.. So as far as I am concerned I am getting an Italian chef to cook my meal for the price of McDonald's..

sudhirj3• 14 years ago

That's what I would have thought at first, but the problem (for Dropbox) I'm seeing there is that there isn't really that kind of differentiator.

You have a folder that exists on your devices, and the contents of the folder are automatically synced across all your devices. You also have a web interface that you can use to upload and download files. You have a certain amount of space and can buy more. You can share that folder or parts of it with others or teams.

Am I talking about Dropbox or Drive?

ig1• 14 years ago

It also describes rsync

israelyc2• 14 years ago

For new adopters, you might be right.. but for someone who's using Dropbox already, there is no way.

Because it is all about the details. Gdrive doesn't have all the applications for each platform, and it will take them a while until they will get it right (even if they just emulate).

And I think DB knows that and they're trying to acquire Android users (by offering free 3GB if you sync photos from your phone) before Google integrates gdrive in Android: http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=984

anonhacker• 14 years ago

This is one way of looking at it, a dissenting view: Because Google is so integrated gmail,google docs, etc -> You are sitting in a restaurant that serves Italian and Mexican food, across the street is another Italian restaurant, where would you go to eat?

MattBearman• 14 years ago

I'll be sticking with dropbox simply for data diversification. I already run all my email through Google, call me paranoid, but I don't like the idea of them having access to all my 'cloud-y' data.

tsurantino• 14 years ago

As some one else had already said, Dropbox is non-intrusive. It's a stand-alone product that, by doing so, offers incredible flexibility. The differentiating factor is that, unlike other Cloud Services, it doesn't want to get in your way. It doesn't want to force anything on you. It just wants to make you do what you already want to do, better (sharing files).

Google Drive and other cloud solutions have big, overarching ideas. That's one of the reasons why it took Google Drive so long to get out to the public. From what I've read, there was a whole internal political controversy about how it should be implemented with respect to the entire Google bouquet (or current lack thereof).

That being said, Dropbox will need to work hard to push the industry of cloud servicing into a new direction to compete with Google, which will be quickly adapting to eventually outpace the startup.

sairam_• 14 years ago

I think dropbox is great and non intrusive but this presents 2 challenges 1. Since dropbox is almost in the background, it's much easier to forget about it, than my gmail and google docs (google drive's integration with it). I think this means that I will adopt google drive sooner than i would like to admint and slowly start forgetting dropbox because it's too non-intrusive 2. What will this do to new user adoption for dropbox? google drive is clearly visible ...

i think dropbox should quickly scale up enterprise level activations and the non google dependent users ... also might help them to develop new strategies to start holding on to people, becoming a bit more visible ...

aorshan• 14 years ago

I think a different way to think about it should be, since Google Drive and Dropbox are pretty much the same, why should I switch from Dropbox to Google Drive?

I certainly can't think of a reason and thus will happily remain a Dropbox user.

tomdeakin• 14 years ago

This may be a significant reason as to why people won't switch. Why go to the hastle of moving data just to use another service?

Plus, with referrals in Dropbox, the free space difference becomes negligible.

twog• 14 years ago

I would imagine pricing would be the biggest motivation to change. Dropbox is 8x more expensive per GB.

bbatchelder• 14 years ago

I won't be switching any time soon. The way Google manages its products, I want to wait a bit and make sure they won't give it the axe like Wave.

Ideally, this will just force Dropbox to up their game and/or drop their prices, which I will reap the benefit of without having to migrate my data.

macca321• 14 years ago

Webhooks, webhooks, webhooks. They will drive innovation and thus adoption.

What's Dropbox going to do now?

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