I really do hope that they progress on the path they started instead of just acquiring mailbox for the talent. I know they said that they would but thats what we heard about Sparrow when they were bought by Google and the results sucked.
Good luck to everyone on the mailbox team, I love your product, please don't kill it.
> " To be clear, Mailbox is not going away. The product needs to grow fast, and we believe that joining Dropbox is the best way to make that happen. Plus, imagine what cool things you could do if your Mailbox was connected to your Dropbox…"
To be frank, it's really hard to believe that. They're being acquired, it isn't up to them anymore what happens to Mailbox. They signed the keys away to Drew Houston and the management team at Dropbox. Mailbox dies the moment Drew decides to kill it.
Every time someone here responds when their name is mentioned, I think of this scene from "Annie Hall":
Alvy Singer: [the man behind him in line is talking loudly] What I wouldn't give for a large sock with horse manure in it!
Alvy Singer: [to audience] Whaddya do when you get stuck in a movie line with a guy like this behind you?
Man in Theatre Line: Wait a minute, why can't I give my opinion? It's a free country!
Alvy Singer: He can give it... do you have to give it so loud? I mean, aren't you ashamed to pontificate like that? And the funny part of it is, Marshall
McLuhan, you don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan!
Man in Theatre Line: Oh, really? Well, it just so happens I teach a class at Columbia called "TV, Media and Culture." So I think my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity!
Alvy Singer: Oh, do ya? Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here, so, so, yeah, just let me...
[pulls McLuhan out from behind a nearby poster]
Alvy Singer: come over here for a second... tell him!
Marshall McLuhan: I heard what you were saying! You know nothing of my work! You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing!
This is what is said LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TIME a company is acquired -- right along with "nothing is changing" and we'll "continue to operate with the vision that made us attractive to $acquirer in the first place"
Without a more clear rationale for why things won't change, it's pretty reasonable to assume that the product is at risk no matter what you say. The fact is, almost regardless of your intentions, your organization is going to put its thumbprint on the product.
What that means is unclear to external customers, and is also often unclear internally. If you do know what your plans are for it internally, you're still probably not going to say (though I'd love to be wrong).
Are you sure you're being LITERAL? I certainly remember some google acquisitions where it was stated straight up that the product would be discontinued in the initial press release.
It's not actually the case that every single acquisition in the world involves public platitudes about the continuance of management, the product, culture, office location, or lunch room perks.
Here's my chief gripe with using hyperbole and "literally" - If the word "literally" can be used non-literally, in a hyperbole or a metaphor, then it stops serving its purpose of marking a sentence as being literal. Then, when a sentence permits metaphoric and literal interpretations and you stick "literally" in it, nothing changes - it can still be either metaphoric or literal. The only solution I see is using "really literally" to mean that your sentence isn't metaphoric. Until people start using "really literally" in a metaphoric way. I virtually really literally actually in fact don't want to see that happen.
Merriam Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary already accept the use of "literally" to mean "virtually" in informal contexts. It's a losing battle.
Now if you were to acquire 49% of Mailbox, I might believe that. But you must understand our doubts -- it feels like every single time a giant company acquires a useful little startup, the users eventually (and often sooner than later) get burned by it.
I'm open to your Mailbox acquisition being the exception to this trend, but I hope you understand my healthy skepticism.
That doesn't really strike me as relevant? Many "businesses" are one or two people. Obviously "giant" is subjective but considering the largest companies are a few orders of magnitude bigger, I maintain what I said earlier: Only people who are immersed in the startup world consider Dropbox a "giant" company.
Just to add some objectivity to the debate, in France, between 250 and 4999 employees a company is considered to be an "intermediate size company" (as long as the revenue is below 1.5 G€).
I don't know the American standard, but I'd be surprised if it isn't similar.
I did read the article. However we have heard things like that before so I'm a bit wary that 6 months down the line DB isn't going to reconsider and kill the mailbox platform.
No, they were pretty up front that Sparrow was a talent acquisition. They said that the product would continue to exist but they weren't going to update it and they were going to work on new projects at Google.
The Gmail app is slick, but extremely slow for me (on iPhone 5), as in "it's really annoying every time I use this app but I've moved away from native Mail and inertia is a hell of a thing." Other people I've talked to have had similar experiences. I'm excited to try Mailbox.
you can't be serious, it's the beginnings of something good, but it has all kinds of problems, it fails to load email often (reporting "something has gone wrong.."), it routinely doesn't clear the red read indicator, it's laggy and sluggish. I am sure Google will make it kickass in the fullness of time, but for now, that's not what gmail/iOS is.
Unread indicator is always wrong, especially when you use multiple devices. Seems very I characteristic of google. It's been that way since they released the app.
I haven't tried the app (no iPhone). Can someone explain to me why the Mailbox app is so great? From the intro video, I see a typical email app with a couple of extra gestures thrown in.
Like Sparrow, it seems it's more marketing and hype than a radical upgrade to the email experience.
Beyond all of the complicated integration/feature scenarios people are proposing, what shouldn't be forgotten is the fact that email is the primary way most people send and receive files. Combine that with mobile fast becoming the primary computing device for most people, and you have an extremely sensible acquisition.
Well said. Pretty easy way for all files you receive to immediately be in your Dropbox, and for Dropbox to either
a. launch an email service that runs off the space in your dropbox, or
b. automatically create dropbox folders shared between all recipients of an attachment and automatically set permissions.
Try sending someone any of the dozen different filetypes gmail has blacklisted sometime. They even peer into your archive files!
Maybe GDrive lets you store those formats, but I've never had GMail offer that as an alternative. It just stops me from sending executables around even though that is an integral part of what I do.
Indeed, but of course email typically has a limit on the size of the file you can attach (for good reason).
In Outlook.com (was Hotmail), you can send a large file by sending a link to a file in SkyDrive. You don't have to upload the file to SkyDrive first; it's just an extension to the "attach file" feature within Outlook.com.
Argh, I hope I'm not waiting in line for the same experience.. :-)
I'm still curious to see if I like it (I am an inbox-zero person), so I'll stick it out.. But yeah, I've been in line for 3 weeks now or so, I think...
I love the promise of the internet. Nimble upstarts competing on a level playing field with huge corporations. A decentralized market without physical agency. More owners and more competition.
Well, Dropbox itself is competing "on a level playing field with huge corporations". See: competition from Google Drive, Apple iCloud, Microsoft SkyDrive, and so on. All companies with comparatively huge amounts of resources.
After that forum post where the user claimed Dropbox had leaked their email to spammers, I have severe reservations about giving them the actual credentials to my email account, whether or not the allegations were correct.
A possible first step towards matching the broad ecosystem of their new chief competitors, Google Drive and Microsoft Skydrive. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them acquire an office app suite next.
There are so many options once Dropbox can theoritcally be accessed through an inbox interface...
Mailbox could be a first step to competing with Messages/gChat. Instead of rolling out their own email, Dropbox can be another type of account Mailbox works with to send pictures, videos, files over data rather than texting or emailing. An odd feature to roll out without acquiring a popular product, but making Dropbox the goto rather than the link attached to something else.
Why should Dropbox have a message client (or email client). I fail to see how they are connected. I feel the same about Twitter launching a music service.
There used to be the joke that every software expands until it can read mail. Nowadays I think we need a new saying. Every software company expands until... it has rebuilt every other software product (not as catchy).
Not messaging per-se exactly, but making Dropbox an account that could be accessed through Mailbox. The standalone messaging without sending a file as well is just a wacky idea of a different direction Dropbox could decide to take things.
Are there any viable competitors to Google Docs err Drive and MS Office? Office is the feature powerhouse and Drive is lean and fast service, I haven't seen anything that can be acquired around!
I don't find Drive to be particularly lean/fast -- it's been easier for me and my peers to work on content/formatting on Word than email it; Drive's lack of features is certainly not a proxy for being lightweight.
"This means not only continuing to scale the service, but also including support for more email providers and mobile devices."
Please, please let this mean that they plan on supporting EAS. Migrating to Google Apps for Business in not an option for me, and everyone and his brother is building fancy IMAP-only email clients, while I'm stuck with the default mail client on my iPhone. I love Mailbox's interface, but I barely get a chance to use it, as my primary email address that 99% of my email goes through is on Outlook.com-hosted email.
The biggest problem with Exchange Active Sync is that to implement it you have to pay a licensing fee to Microsoft. For a lot of smaller developers that simply isn't an option, especially for something they are giving away for free or for a very low price.
Also, EAS is proprietary, whereas IMAP is open. Outlook.com should simply add IMAP support.
Second that, although I never got anything but the mail to work (no contacts, cal, tasks) and since evolution is a piece of crap (at least the version that comes with FC 18) I had to use thunderbird which doesn't have cal. But it's still worth it!
For everyone thinking Mailbox is getting Sparrowfied, there's good news:
To be clear, Mailbox is not going away. The product needs to grow fast, and we believe that joining Dropbox is the best way to make that happen. Plus, imagine what cool things you could do if your Mailbox was connected to your Dropbox.
I'm so glad that Mailbox is going to stay alive. It has been just one month since I removed Sparrow and started using Mailbox mostly.
I've actually been somewhat hoping Dropbox would venture into email. Their service has been reliable for me for years, and it'd be nice to have a decent Gmail competitor at last.
My outsider view: they are going to build a full-fledged productivity suite. They have the storage, versioning, you can view files/docs and now you have an email client. The "obvious" next move would be getting into the online document editing space. But then, this is me just speculating from the sidelines.
If you look at their foray into photos and the way they talk about their service now, Dropbox is becoming a lifestyle brand focused on your personal data.
Meanwhile, the mobile e-mail client that the Mailbox team built is so cool that it convinced about a million people to let Mailbox store a full copy of their e-mail archive ... in 10 weeks.
That kind of strategic value means it's smart for them to swoop the product and team up RIGHT NOW, even if they had to pay a premium to do it.
I don't know about "very clever", but if you look at Dropbox as moving towards an iCloud-like service where its more than just data, it make sense. But it sounds a lot like a talent acquisition that comes with a nice mail app that probably has some similar technical challenges to the things Dropbox already does well. Seems like a good way to kickstart a Dropbox email platform.
I feel like any communications app, especially e-mail related, that's trying to label itself as "modern" needs to include some support for crypto as a requirement. I hope the Dropbox people push for things like that from Mailbox, given their past security problems.
It's hilariously easy to skip the line and gain access to the "velvet room" as it is described in this application's plist file. You can even do this entirely on a non-jailbroken device. Tokenless system based entirely on local authentication.
(1) join dropbox, probably for a pretty penny with stock options that will probably look very nice when Dropbox goes public -- fuel further growth and integration with Dropbox with even more significant resources at your disposal (including HIRING really good engineers a la "come work for Dropbox!")
(2) stay as a high-risk start-up with no revenue, no tested plans of monetization with huge problems of scale (due to its rapid growth) and create a funding round which liquidates your ownership stake significantly, puts you @ the mercy of some risk averse VC's and limits your exit options (depending upon valuation)
I love the product, but I have to admit this (1) would be my choice as well
Regardless the reasons they sell themselves. But I still think it's a good idea to join Dropbox since they are really open and they love to create good product instead of trying to get money.
I hope mailbox having the right place to continue growing as a good product.
Furthermore: I love the current startup markets, so many awesome products. But still there are bunch of craps which have new and fancy interfaces but nothing inside. Rather joining the big and create big thing together :)
Google killed sparrow because Gmail is better than sparrow Google din't kill YouTube because YouTube is better than Google videos. Facebook dint kill instagram.
So,I think Dropbox has just acquire mailbox not for killing it but to enter a different domain.
Not sure if the acquisition makes strategic sense for Dropbox, but at least I have some confidence that Mailbox wouldn't simply disappear: Dropbox core product has a freemium model, and they are very successful company.
Getting a monopoly on the 'box'. Actually, I'd say a startup being acquired by a small company like Dropbox is a better outcome than a startup being consumed into the monolithic companies like Apple or Google.
How can an app like Mailbox make you mad? Here is how:
I'm still waiting in the queue for over a month now to even try the app. Scarcity is the mental mind hack used to increase demand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini)...but for me personally its backfired. If Dropbox's resources can help here, I'm all for it. Good luck.
Also, a note to mailbox web designer, try adding more contrast to your text so I can actually read it.
Acquired before I've even got my invite! :) Still another 276,000 people in front of me. I really hope Dropbox keeps it around (and from the comments that seems to be the case).
Android fans take note of how their app is iPhone only at the moment. This is important. In every flamewar people argue that Android is the same essentially as iPhone or better, but there are two HUGE gaps
1. iOS gets new apps faster. In this case, Mailbox is iOS
2. Accessories are harder to find for the large gamut of Android-running devices.
(being an Android fan, I have a self-interest in getting companies to release Android apps faster than they currently do)
I use Mailbox. I like it to do the normal, read/archive thingy fast. But for serious mailing, Sparrow still wins. Aside this, it was clearly normal to see them acquired by other grande company.
Mailbox was free. No business model. Their own business model surely was acquisition. Did you thought they were last to the point of an IPO or charging for their service? Me not.
For those who are interested in an alternative service check out Right Inbox. Lets you schedule emails in Gmail, allows tracking emails and setting reminders. http://www.rightinbox.com/
I just read over the features offered by Mailbox, and I don't see anything that I'm not already getting from using Gmail with the Boomerang plugin. Can anyone who is using Mailbox explain its unique benefits?
I was genuinely asking for someone in the community to explain what makes the app unique. I wish that whoever down voted this would have explained his reasoning.
Am I the only one who thinks Dropbox isn't very good? I only seem to see positive comments, and that just doesn't make sense to me.
I'm a premium Dropbox user with multiple terabytes of storage. (We deal with large files that have to be shared among many users widely dispersed.) I've been using it for a while now. When dealing with large files, it's slow, clunky, and restrictive. You have to use the desktop client to upload files of any appreciable size, and then you get zero feedback on the file's progress. I just don't see how $3,500 a year for that is better than the cost of an old-school FTP server.
I'm curious if any of you are in a similar situation but have had a better experience.
Yeah, I was just kind of curious to hear what other premium users were experiencing. I assume anyone who goes premium has a need like mine. Oh well. Lesson learned: Don't talk smack about a Y Combinator company on Y Combinator. The proprietors have a magical downvote button.
>>To be clear, Mailbox is not going away. The product needs to grow fast, and we believe that joining Dropbox is the best way to make that happen. Plus, imagine what cool things you could do if your Mailbox was connected to your Dropbox.
what's going to happen to orchestra? i actually use it all the time, almost as much as mailbox -- is this going over to dropbox or will it be gasp deadpooled?
Sometimes I wish companies would just focus on what they do well instead of trying to expand forever, wedging themselves into every niche of your life and watering down the utility of their offerings.
I really do hope that they progress on the path they started instead of just acquiring mailbox for the talent. I know they said that they would but thats what we heard about Sparrow when they were bought by Google and the results sucked.
Good luck to everyone on the mailbox team, I love your product, please don't kill it.