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Dropbox's IPO filing reveals 500M users but a $1 billion deficit
In a move reminiscent of Snap's IPO journey, Bloomberg sources claimed last month that Dropbox had quietly filed to become a public company. Suspicious hires last year had tipped their hand, and we waited to see what would happen for a company valued over $10 billion a few years ago. Today, Dropbox's IPO filing surfaced, and while we still don't know what day its stock will hit the market, their documentation pulls back a bit of the veil on the company's situation as it gears up to go public.
After a decade, Dropbox quietly files for a public stock offering
Just a week after Spotify quietly filed to become a public company, it looks like another hot tech firm is doing the same. According to Bloomberg, Dropbox has just made its own filing to become an IPO in the US. The cloud-based file sharing company was valued at $10 billion just a few years ago and has been moving steadily towards a public offering for a while now.
Tech companies file briefs supporting challenges to DACA withdrawal
Major tech companies are still voicing their support for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that protects undocumented immigrants that came to the US when they were children. President Trump decided to end DACA protections in September and while tech companies spoke out in support of DACA prior to and following that decision, many have now filed a document backing those that are challenging the president's move in court.
Paul Manafort's password inspiration: Bond. James Bond.
Apparently, being involved in high-level political intrigue doesn't guarantee that you'll be any good at password management. Security researchers speaking to Motherboard have discovered that former Trump campaign manager and international lobbyist Paul Manafort used uncannily appropriate password variations for his old (2012-2013) Adobe and Dropbox accounts: Bond007. Yes, you read that correctly -- as Christina Wilkie notes, this was a secret foreign agent signing in as another secret foreign agent. Cheekiness aside, the James Bond nod underscores the tendency toward terrible password habits and how they can have very real consequences.
Dropbox targets freelancing workers with new 'Professional' tier
It's been a year and a half since Dropbox first showed off "Smart Sync" (then known as Project Infinite), a feature that would let everything stored in your Dropbox account show up on your computer, whether the file was located on your hard drive or up in the cloud. It launched for the enterprise-level Dropbox Business users in January, but today Smart Sync will be available for all of Dropbox users as part of a brand-new service tier.
Tech CEOs sign letter urging Trump to keep immigrant protections
Hundreds of CEOs have signed an open letter urging President Trump not to dissolve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Started in 2012 under the Obama administration, DACA allows undocumented immigrants who arrived to the US before they were 16 years old to obtain work permits and protection from deportation. Those with DACA permits have to renew them every two years and nearly 800,000 immigrants have benefited from the program.
Dropbox Paper's newest features cater to designers
Dropbox Paper originally seemed like a Google Docs clone built for the big businesses that have been an increasingly large focus for the cloud sync-and-share company. But two years since its initial introduction, Paper's ability to embed and display a huge variety of content (including images, Google spreadsheets, data from Github YouTube videos, Spotify playlists and plain old code) has helped it carve out niches in a variety of businesses.
EFF rates how companies stand up to government data requests
If you're wondering which tech company will protect you in the face of a government request, you may want to check this out. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released this year's "Who Has Your Back" report, which grades tech giants and some smaller companies based on how they handle government requests for data. Nine companies got perfect scores: Adobe, Credo Mobile, Dropbox, Lyft, Pinterest, Sonic (ISP), Uber, Wickr (a software maker) and Wordpress.
Dropbox collects privacy settings into a security checkup page
Giving apps and services direct access to your Dropbox account is easier than locally downloading files and re-uploading them. But can you name every one you've linked up? Today, Dropbox has reorganized the most important user security settings in one place, letting you manually check which third-party apps, devices and web browsers have access to your account or reset your password on the same page.
Apple's 2TB iCloud plan will only cost you $10 a month
A slew of announcements came out of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday including a price drop for the company's 2TB iCloud storage plan. It may not be as sexy as the HomePod, but it's still pretty good news.
Apple might give iOS 11 a real file system
Those wanting more control over file storage on their iPhones may be in for some good news later today. A placeholder for a new "Files" app showed up in the App Store.
Amazon is trying to be your one-stop subscription shop
Amazon's subscription offerings go beyond Kindle Unlimited, Prime and its various add-ons. The retailer has offered magazine subscriptions for awhile too, and now the company has set up Subscribe with Amazon. It's a hub that gives "subscription providers the ability to offer customers flexible pricing including introductory, monthly and annual pricing options, as well as the opportunity to explore offering Prime exclusive deals," Amazon said in a press release.
Dropbox document scanning comes to Android devices
Android Dropbox users now have the same ability as their iOS-using brethren: scanning documents right to their account with a mobile app. The company's Paper app -- a collaborative document workspace for Dropbox Business users -- also gets an offline mode for both iOS and Android.
Tech titans back transgender student's Supreme Court case
Apple has officially signed an amicus brief in support of Gavin Grimm's case that's hitting the Supreme Court later this month. In addition, Cupertino has successfully helped convince other tech titans to support the transgender student's fight for the right to use the bathroom that matches his gender identity. According to TechCrunch, the company worked with non-profit org Human Rights Campaign to reach out to potential signatories in the tech industry. Their crusade was so successful, tech corporations ended up dominating the list of 53 companies that signed the brief.
Dropbox Smart Sync lets you collaborate across Mac and Windows PCs
Last year, Dropbox introduced an interesting new feature called Project Infinite, which promised to let you view and access all of your files, whether they're on your hard drive or in the cloud. The idea here is that all your files will appear right there in your desktop, and you can view and make changes to them without having to launch Dropbox's web interface. Several months later and Project Infinite has left its beta state. Now, it's called Smart Sync, and it'll be available to all Dropbox Business users starting today.
Dropbox is now available on the Xbox One
Dropbox has long said it wants to be available on whichever platforms people use to get things done. That's why it has done so much to integrate with Microsoft Office over the years, for example. But the latest place you'll find Dropbox is nonetheless unexpected: The company just launched an app for the Xbox One.
Dropbox saves whole folders for offline viewing on mobile
Look, it's not hard to save Dropbox files for offline viewing on mobile. But when you need to make sure you have access to a bevy of documents for work or school wherever you go, the app's latest premium feature sounds like a useful addition. The service has launched the ability to save whole folders offline with just a couple of taps. By doing so, you can load all the files it contains on a smartphone even if you're on a train, a building or in remote areas with no WiFi and spotty mobile internet.
Plex can pull media from Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive
Plex has added support for Google Drive, OneDrive and DropBox to its Plex Cloud service. The original idea with the service, which debuted in beta this September, was to void the need for a dedicated media server or network attached storage (NAS) drives. That way, assuming you have a decently fast internet connection, you can stream your movies or songs wherever you are via files that are parked securely in the cloud.
Dropbox pushes further into education by partnering with Blackboard
Dropbox is continuing to make the education market a priority as it looks for new customers. About six months after introducing its first product aimed specifically at schools, the company is announcing a new partnership with Blackboard Learn, one of the most widely-used "virtual learning" applications out there. If you haven't used Blackboard Learn before, it's a tool that makes it easier for students to collaborate and for professors to build an online home for their coursework.
Dropbox for iOS lets you sign PDFs, adds iMessage app
Dropbox isn't a company that makes flashy, high-profile changes to its products. Instead, they're all about refinement, making small changes over time that end up making things faster and easier for customers. That's happening today with the Dropbox iOS app: the company is rolling out five new features, with another important one, iPad split-screen multitasking, coming soon. None of the new features are groundbreaking on their own, but they take advantage of some new iOS 10 features and add up to a Dropbox experience that makes it easier for the company's customers to Get Things Done.
