The company was created by two MIT grads, Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, who were frustrated about having to email each other's files. But it also faces enormous competition in the file sharing space from other startups such as Box.net, CloudMe, SugarSync, Egnyte, and big players such as Apple and Google, which are both actively expanding the ability of users to share files. Just last month, Dropbox was voted "startup of the year" at the annual Crunchies Awards. Last September, Dropbox scored an astounding $250 million in venture capital and currently has about 50 million users. I couldn't think of a better company than Dropbox.įounded in 2007, the rise of San Francisco-based Dropbox tracks almost perfectly with the cloud's move from the fringes of tech into its defining trend. To understand why, I thought it would be helpful to put a single service under the microscope to see what it tells us about cloud computing. "Because of cloud computing, we're basically assuming that everything you're doing digitally is available somewhere else through the Internet." "The cloud is everywhere now in our personal lives," said Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research. And most important, why they should care. None of it really helps the average person understand what's different about the cloud, and why this is all happening now. Answering the question, "What is cloud computing?" can lead to lots of rambling answers full of industry statistics. Large companies like Oracle, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle are rushing to overhaul their business to sell the tools that enable cloud computing services, while consumers are projected to spend $16 billion annually on cloud services by 2016, according to Gartner research.īut as important as this trend is, I find the concept can still be bewildering to non-techies. In the past year, it's moved from the talk of tech insiders into the minds of mainstream users thanks to the launch of services like Apple's iCloud.Īnd in the coming decade, analysts are betting that cloud computing will be the defining trend in technology. The "cloud" has been one of Silicon Valley's biggest buzz phrases for a couple of years now. Dropbox also epitomizes a revolutionary shift that is transforming our relationship to technology and turning the technology industry upside down: Cloud computing.
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