Apple Tries To Acquire Dropbox for $800 Million, Dropbox Refuses

[kjk]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I mean, if this is just a legal discussion, there's not much else to talk about: Apple made a legal bid, Dropbox turned them down. End of story.

It's the ethics and the morals that make the story interesting.

Actually it wasn't even a story-just a rumor.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by kjk

Actually it wasn't even a story-just a rumor.

I frequently use the term "story" colloquially.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I frequently use the term "story" colloquially.

Sure, but it's one thing to discuss the ethics and morals of a company actually doing something, it's quite another if it's all just speculation and rumor.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by kjk

Sure, but it's one thing to discuss the ethics and morals of a company actually doing something, it's quite another if it's all just speculation and rumor.

May we discuss them in case the rumor is true, or should we just ask the mods to preemptively lock down any rumor threads?

Apologies, but I'm not really sure why you're splitting hairs over this.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

May we discuss them in case the rumor is true, or should we just ask the mods to preemptively lock down any rumor threads?

Apologies, but I'm not really sure why you're splitting hairs over this.

As you said earlier: "there's not much else to talk about", which I agree with

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by kjk

As you said earlier: "there's not much else to talk about", which I agree with

Well, Kenny C politely reminded me earlier in the week that the threads have an Unsubscribe option for a reason. Where's that kitten when we need him?

Joking.

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by anabolina

I just started using Dropbox this past weekend. It's been great so far and I can see myself using Dropbox a lot more in the future. But dude, if it they were bought by Apple, I'd drop the service as soon as the announcement was confirmed. As the saying goes, 'grass wouldn't grow under my feet'.

Interesting comment.

It would be nice if you can provide the technical or personal reasons for that.

[Xenophon]

Many posters here appear to have missed an important part of the original story/rumor:

Apple offered to buy DropBox for $800M... back some time ago long before DB raised more money at a price that values DB at $4B.

Note the tense of that previous sentence -- it's important.

The comments on this thread might be more to the point if the Title of the thread was "Apple tried... Drobox Refused". PAST TENSE. It's a recent rumor about something that happened a while ago, back when $800M was a plausible price (although not a price that the founders of DB were willing to accept).

Xenophon

[stonetools]

Man, X , you are spoiling our fun here-which is pointless argument about something that may have been.
As you can see, the argument moved on to familiar ground-for and against Apple.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Many posters here appear to have missed an important part of the original story/rumor:

Apple offered to buy DropBox for $800M... back some time ago long before DB raised more money at a price that values DB at $4B.

Xenophon-BusinessInsider made that distinction, that the offer was before they raised $4 billion, but the OP's link says:

After having gained around $4 billion in a round of funding, Dropbox’s revenue for this year is expected to be $100 million. ...
If this source is to be believed, Apple saw this opportunity to strike gold and offered Dropbox $800 million however the company has declined their offer because they too think that this is just the beginning for Dropbox.

(emphasis mine)

BusinessInsider's quote:

Before file-storage-on-the-Internet service Dropbox raised a huge round at a $4 billion valuation, it underwent an M&A process.

(emphasis mine, again.)

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by wodin

Balderdash!

I’m an IT Project Manager working for the US Army, and I can tell you unequivocally, that the only security concern that led to the banning of removable media was the introduction of viruses into Government networks via USB drives. Whether or not a phone or tablet has an SD slot is a completely different issue, but I’m pretty well convinced that the reason iDevices don’t have SD slots is the same reason they can’t be mounted as external drives on desktop/laptop computers; just another brick in the wall.

1. removable media may be banned by the Army, but they aren't by other government agencies.

2. the iPhone, iPod & iPad can all be placed into "disc mode" and used as external storage devices.

[murraypaul]

[deleted]

[Harmon]

[QUOTE=tomsem;1740233]

Also they want to enforce the artificial pricing tiers so that people buy more tablet than they really need (because you can't expand the memory later). Most people could probably manage quite nicely with the low end 16GB but you don't know that until you've used it for a few months. So 'entry level' is the price everybody finds attractive but nobody actually winds up purchasing. The models above that have more profit built in.

It's true enough that if you don't do video, the 16 is perfectly adequate. And if you do video, the 32 works fine - I have several movies on mine at any one time.

I tend to think of there being two models of the iPad - the personal wifi model and the business 3G model, mainly because I can't see spending money for the 3G connection charges if I didn't at least have a writeoff for it, or an employer to pay for it.

Actually, I think that anyone who takes a few minutes to anticipate their actual use of the iPad will make the right purchase. The hard part is for the first time buyer, who doesn't know what he'll be using.

Likewise with the lack of 3G modularity. If they offered upgradable wifi model, people would just get that and forget to upgrade.

And have to pay more for something they'd never use.

Obligatory Dropbox comment: it seems to me that if Apple were going to do anything pertaining to Dropbox, it would be to kick it off the iOS platform on a going forward basis. The only reason I see for buying Dropbox would be to acquire patents Dropbox might own.

[stonetools]

[QUOTE=Harmon;1741086]

Originally Posted by tomsem

It's true enough that if you don't do video, the 16 is perfectly adequate. And if you do video, the 32 works fine - I have several movies on mine at any one time.

I tend to think of there being two models of the iPad - the personal wifi model and the business 3G model, mainly because I can't see spending money for the 3G connection charges if I didn't at least have a writeoff for it, or an employer to pay for it.

Actually, I think that anyone who takes a few minutes to anticipate their actual use of the iPad will make the right purchase. The hard part is for the first time buyer, who doesn't know what he'll be using.



And have to pay more for something they'd never use.

Obligatory Dropbox comment: it seems to me that if Apple were going to do anything pertaining to Dropbox, it would be to kick it off the iOS platform on a going forward basis. The only reason I see for buying Dropbox would be to acquire patents Dropbox might own.

Frankly, now that I have used my iPad for 9 months, I would have opted for the 32 if I had it to do over . Since I was a first time buyer ( and cheap) I was cautious. There is a sense in which you really can't judge these things really until you actually use it. I use my iPad pretty much every day all day along, so i know I'm getting value for my money. And occassional use of 3G would actually be good, even for a non-biz user. H'mm, I think I'm talking myself into upgrading. Must.... resist....

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by stonetools

H'mm, I think I'm talking myself into upgrading. Must.... resist....

If it helps, think about the fact that the ipad3 will probably be HD. You can wait for that.