Why Would Apple Even Offer to Buy DropBox?
Business Insider has an article up about DropBox refusing an $800 million buyout offer from Apple. It's been reproduced in a few places.
Though they admit it's badly sourced gossip, it does make me ask the question: Why would Apple even want DropBox?
If you're not aware, DropBox is an online storage system that essentially allows you to sync a folder on many devices. By storing things in DropBox they become available on any other device you install DropBox on. There's apps for your phone, PC or Mac. It's an awesome system, and I use it frequently. My favourite use for it is to give me a single place to keep desktop backgrounds from Simple Desktops.
DropBox even has an API that's allowed developers to use it for some pretty creative things. IA Writer will store your next masterpiece of literature in it, 1Password will store the thousands of irritating logins and passwords you need to use the web and Quickoffice will give you a convenient place to keep that quarterly report you've been putting off.
But considering the great expense and effort Apple has gone to making iCloud, I can't see a good reason they'd wish to own DropBox.
It's not really Apple's style to buy a company for access to its existing customers. And the current architecture of iCloud would allow them to easily clone the functionality of DropBox in OS X and iOS. I'd even argue they did once before with MobileMe and .Mac.
There are only two reasons I can think of that seem plausible:
- They want the expertise DropBox has in cloud storage and sharing.
- DropBox has patents on folder syncing or file sharing in this type of environment.
I think it's more likely Drew Houston and his team Apple would be interested in. DropBox is a really solid product, despite some security concerns earlier in the year. It's dead simple and completely reliable. But even that's a stretch considering how solid iCloud seems to be so far. I have the beta iOS 5 installed right now, which includes some iCloud functionality. It's a small step to get some DropBox like action into it.
A quick search for patents DropBox has comes up with squat.
But that's all assuming the rumour was true – which I really doubt it was. Maybe I'll get filed as claim chowder by daringfireball.net. Who knows?
