Dropbox Finally Brings Its Google Docs Competitor Out of Beta (theverge.com)

Dropbox today made Paper -- its note-taking app that it's emphasizing is a tool that's built for managing workflow as well -- global. In addition to the launch of Paper, the company said that users will also be able to automatically generate presentations in Keynote and other applications through the app. From a report: Dropbox's software is similar to Google's suite of workplace cloud apps. Paper -- itself a minimal document editor and writing tool like Google Docs -- is the focal point, while all of Dropbox's other services and features now plug into and augment the experience. Paper is Dropbox's latest attempt to court businesses away from Microsoft and Google, or at the very least to encourage companies to pay for Dropbox services on top of what they already use institutionally. It's part of Dropbox's ongoing shift away from consumer storage and apps and toward enterprise software that is both more lucrative and self-sustaining. The company shut down its Mailbox email app and Carousel photo storage service back in 2015. In place of its consumer focus, Dropbox has been pouring more resources into Paper and other projects that make its mobile apps and website a place to perform work, instead of a barebones destination for files.

Comments

Firorstu postu

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I join an elite trolling organization now?

Compatibility

[Camel Pilot]

What is the compatibility between file formats of Dropbox/GoogleDoc/Office?

Re:Compatibility

[ColdWetDog]

It will probably support ANSI characters.

Can such a name even be trademarked?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Paper" seems awfully generic and already taken by other apps, "papers" etc.:
http://alternativeto.net/browse/search?q=paper

Can they still get a trademark for that or should we expect the market to be flooded with lots of knockoffs with the same name?

Re:Can such a name even be trademarked?

[Luthair]

IANAL but with words (Word, Windows, Publisher, Works, Sky, Metro, etc. ) you can apply for a trademark for a narrow market, with made-up words (like Xerox) you can get a broad trademark.

Re:Can such a name even be trademarked?

[cheesybagel]

You would be wrong. "Word" wasn't trademarkeable, they had to name it "Microsoft Word". Same thing for Microsoft Windows.

You... you're still a company?

[ckatko]

DropBox is still a thing? Their pricing is insane AND as we've established, their tool chain is years behind.

20 GB for a $1/month? Google offers 100 GB for $2/month (even less if you pay yearly!).

Re:You... you're still a company?

[xeoron]

I will say that they offer 2 things that no one else does: Network sync, so a file does not have to go into the cloud or come from the cloud in order to sync to another device on the network; no one else supports this. And, they also support following symlinks.

Re:You... you're still a company?

[Richard_at_work]

Dropbox lan sync still requires the file to be uploaded to the cloud...

Re:You... you're still a company?

[Overzeetop]

Their pricing is pretty much inline with other cloud services. What they lack is tiers of service. You get 1TB for $100 and unlimited for $750 plus $150/user for users>5 on a single account. Nothing below (save the basic free tier), nor in between.

Re:You... you're still a company?

[swb]

I use Dropbox because it works well, is priced reasonably for a 1 TB of storage and it has near ubiquitous support.

That being said, it does follow symlinks, but AFAIK it doesn't automagically update symlinked folders without pausing and unpausing the client to force a re-scan.

And in a lot of ways, the use of symlinks wouldn't be necessary if they would allow you to add more than one top-level sync folder (the "dropbox" folder). Symlinks are just a (useful) kludge to not be forced to break your own existing folder hierarchy to sync with Dropbox.

I'd like to see more features along the lines of security/encryption, but I also can see where that might be hard. If I have something sensitive I want to store there, I encrypt it myself.

You... don't use Dropbox??

[SuperKendall]

20 GB for a $1/month?

For a service that works incredibly well? And one that I know will not just get dropped when Google grows bored?

Yes.

Google Drive is the same price for 1TB as Dropbox ($9.99) and Dropbox is even cheaper if you buy a year in advance.

Remarkable

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where both, vi and emacs win.

Re:Dropbox sounds like a PENIS!

[alvinrod]

I didn't know Tourettes extended to written communication.

Learn something new everyday.

Not a Google Docs Competitor

[Rataerix]

Paper would be more of a note taking application similar to onenote or evernote. I would not call this a Google Docs competitor.

Re:Not a Google Docs Competitor

[Anonymous Coward]

Was going to say the same thing - but I am not sure onenote/evernote is the best comparison... I see Quip as the main competitor but also Slack is targeting some of the same problems.

Re:Not a Google Docs Competitor

[Anonymous Coward]

They will probably add others in the future. It's just like how Google Docs started as Writely, just a word processor, and expanded to docs and now Google Drive which does photos and everything.

What comes around

[R3d M3rcury]

Paper [...] is the focal point, while all of Dropbox's other services and features now plug into and augment the experience.

Sounds like OpenDoc...

I gave Paper a spin over the weekend

[davide marney]

I actually was pretty impressed. It's definitely more than just a note-taking app, it's focused more on collaboration. It does have a document surface to record the collaboration (you make lists of things, images, text, and so on), but the final result isn't supposed to be the pretty-print product, it's supposed to be everyone's collective ideas, comments, links, contributions, etc.

It did warm my heart to see markdown as an export format, and actually that kind of makes a lot of sense given the intent (just get 'er done, forget the fancy formatting.)

I could see myself using it, sure.

Been taking it for a spin

[wjcofkc]

I was hoping to like it, I really was. One thing is for sure, I am not their target audience. Everything I can do with it that I need to I can do between Onenote and Onedrive, with much greater ease. The interface itself seems very cumbersome, unfinished, and unpolished. They want to charge for this? I can see plainly that they are trying to do innovative stuff to stand out in an increasingly crowded market, but this has all the hallmarks of way to many developers with way to many managers looking over their shoulders.

It sounded cool, and I wanted and even tried to like it. Ultimately this falls flat on it face IMHO.

I played around with the team sharing features, I can see where that could quickly snowball into a cluster fuck.

Sorry Dropbox, back to the drawing board with you and best of luck. Oh and if you take another swipe? Have the ability to toggle off completely the whole team thing you are trying to do. Some of us would benefit great without it.