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Dropbox Acquires Mailbox
Dropbox announced today that it is acquiring Mailbox, an iOS email client designed to take better advantage of a touch interface. The app launched last month, and the Mailbox team says they're already delivering more than 60 million emails daily. Demand for the service continues to grow, so they were exploring their options to expand. They said,
"We can’t wait to put Mailbox in the hands of everyone who wants it. This means not only continuing to scale the service, but also including support for more email providers and mobile devices. Add to that a host of new features and we’ve got a LOT of work to do, certainly more than our current team of 14 can handle. We need to grow and we need to grow thoughtfully, with top-notch people who share our goals and values. Enter Dropbox, the team from San Francisco who helps over 100M people bring their photos, docs, and videos with them anywhere. They’re a profoundly talented bunch who build great tools that make work frictionless, and Mailbox fits Dropbox’s mission like a glove. Plus, they’ve got a ton of experience scaling services and are experts at handling people’s data with care. In short, Dropbox is our kind of company."
that's like grandma's tech now
And by "these services", I mean cloud services in general. I have several of these accounts. All of which were something like, get a free 50GB account when you buy this gadget. Even with 100"s of GBs of cloud space available to me, I find I don"t use any of it. Sure, I will upload some large files from time to time if I know I want to transfer them to another PC at work for example.
I never put anything on these services that I cannot afford to lose. I cannot say exactly the main reason, but basically,
1. I want direct control over my data
2. The US government has said, if it is in the cloud, you do not own it, and they can look all they want. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57552225-38/senate-bill-rewrite-lets-feds-read-your-e-mail-without-warrants/
3. Who else is looking? Are they selling the jist of the information to target markers?
4. When they go out of business, what happens to my data?
5. If I upload all my music, can I expect a visit from the RIAA to examine receipts of purchase?
6. What if my connection drops or is really really slow?
In my point of view, data services are oversold. My Internet provider, like many others has way over sold its capacity. As such, most providers are doing what ever they can to discourage using the product they sell. Whether it be caps or increased pricing for a reasonable DL/UP speed. This goes double for mobile data services.
With this trend become more and more common, in my eyes, these cloud services which require massive amounts of data transfer, become less and less viable.
For those wanting some of that action:
http://www.scrabblefinder.com/ends-with/box/
I don't see the synergy here. Maybe they do. But the services seem completely disparate.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
...we’ve got a LOT of work to do, certainly more than our current team of 14 can handle... Enter Dropbox, the team from San Francisco who helps over 100M people bring their photos, docs, and videos with them anywhere...
14 lazy people helping 100 million users. They're probably sleeping all day!
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Not one critical word added to the cheesy press release.
Feature request: Automatically detach email attachments. Put files in Dropbox and create link to file in message.
ayottesoftware.com
I signed up for that a while ago. I waited for my reservation to activate.
I turned fired up the app. I linked a Gmail account (only service they currently work with).
I toyed with it for a day. I found it unimpressive, unintuitive, limited, and not useful.
I unlinked my account.
App removed. I fail to see the value in it.
This is a better write-up on Mailbox, and why it is indeed a very good mail application.
Seems like perhaps the Mailbox folks realize this is the absolute top for this simple, albeit, well designed application, and jumped at a chance to sell.
So we put a MailBox inside a DropBox, so that you can Box while you Box.
Dropbox is going to corner the market on tech companies whose name ends with "box"
...information.
Post is 2+ hours old and only 48ish comments, on a slow Friday afternoon.
IOW: Nobody cares.
Nice try, mailbox.com employee.
I usually counterattack the people who immediately attack new things as being less innovative than their marketing suggests, because most if the time those people don't fully understand the product anyway. i believe the market will throw out things with no use.
The tables are turned. I think mailbox.com is one of the dumbest ideas in a long time. What exactly is it? It's an email client. But this ain't your grandma's outlook express! Oh, hell naw! We took reading your email to the next level by adding smooth animations! It's like those fancy weather apps that just blow your freaking mind when all you want to know is what temperature it is.
And if those fancy animations don't blow your freaking socks off, well then listen up. You can move stuff to folders! Of course you can do that with everything from pine to web mail, but to be honest you look like a douche when you organize your inbox. With our patented gestures and smooth animations you will be the sexiest person doing email ever. Look at how beautiful it is!
Cloud sync is nothing new. It's just that web-based Email (one of the first 'cloud' services) came to prominence long enough ago that we don't really think of it as a cloud-based service. As a college student, Dropbox and Evernote have made my life flippin' awesome. I can take notes on any device, mine or borrowed/public, and they're all immediately sync'd and searchable. As for Dropbox, there are only four folders on my desktop: one for each class, and each symbolically linked to Dropbox folders. Every document I create, I immediately save to the appropriate folder, and it is immediately available for view/review/editing on any internet-connected device anywhere.
All your boxes are belonging to us.
An e-mail application which only works with GMail accounts ? One day after Google stopped Reader ? Are you kidding ?
The application looks nice, yes, but there is no way I am adding any dependency to any Google service.