Dropbox has, since its inception, seen meteoric growth. The reasons for that are fairly self-evident. Dropbox is the case study for virality. Its file sharing solution is widely-regarded as the easiest solution in the space to use and its approach of allowing new users to quickly and easily come on board the platform has seen it become the poster child for viral growth.

But alongside that awesomeness that growth brings comes a flip side. Dropbox may have impressive user numbers, but it has had a hard time converting that into meaningful revenue.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious. The broader enterprise file sharing and synchronization (EFSS) space is incredibly busy — Box, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, Syncplicity, Egnyte and dozens of other vendors all offer variations on the theme. Add to that the fact that Dropbox has always been a very consumer-centric company and you have a problem. Dropbox’s founder, Drew Houston, certainly understands making a product that consumers love. But as for an understanding of what it takes to build an enterprise company, and all the additional features, functions and messaging aspects that requires, he has been something of a slow learner.

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Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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