There were rumors flying around months ago that Apple was looking to buy Dropbox. The popular cloud storage service has made a name for itself as one of the most relied-upon wireless sync solutions in the consumer market.
The rumors were true. Apple did want to buy Dropbox, so much so that Steve Jobs himself offered the startup a nine-digit acquisition offer. Dropbox said no to the offer, so Apple created iCloud.
According to Forbes, in December 2009, Steve Jobs personally invited Drew Houston and his partner Arash Ferdowsi (creators of Dropbox) to his office in Cupertino to talk about an offer. Jobs saw the value that Dropbox offered Apple. If you recall, Apple was undergoing intense scrutiny over its failed MobileMe cloud service.
Jobs pitched the offer to Houston and Ferdowsi, but the Dropbox guys wouldn’t budge.
“Jobs presciently saw this sapling as a strategic asset for Apple. Houston cut Jobs’ pitch short: He was determined to build a big company, he said, and wasn’t selling, no matter the status of the bidder (Houston considered Jobs his hero) or the prospects of a nine-digit price (he and Ferdowsi drove to the meeting in a Zipcar Prius).
Jobs smiled warmly as he told them he was going after their market. “He said we were a feature, not a product,” says Houston. Courteously, Jobs spent the next half hour waxing on over tea about his return to Apple, and why not to trust investors, as the duo—or more accurately, Houston, who plays Penn to Ferdowsi’s mute Teller—peppered him with questions.”
After his failed attempt to acquire Dropbox, Jobs gave Houston and Ferdowsi the cold shoulder. It wasn’t until Jobs’ final keynote in June of last year that he unveiled iCloud and made a jab at Dropbox as a half-baked cloud service.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHrnCQls0Vc
Dropbox is now one of the fastest growing tech companies in existence with over 50 million users. After the launch of iCloud, Dropbox has not seen a marginal decrease in market adoption. Things are looking bright for the young entrepreneurs that said no to Steve Jobs two years ago.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
23 responses to “Dropbox Refused Nine-Digit Offer from Steve Jobs and Apple [Report]”
I feel that the odds are Steve Jobs was right and that their decision to not take the offer will turn out to be a bad one.
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Prof. Peabody, if you’re referring to the eventual Rise of iCloud, I agree it will take them over, but I think perhaps they will make more than 100,000,000 by the time that happens. Which makes the choice to turn down Jobs, a good one.
Just ask the guys from Siri, you should have sold. Steve would have made you guys bigger then you could possibly imagine.
DropBox should have a promotion like Box.net does, when you sign up or sign in on any iOS device, you get 50GB added along to your extra plan. The way they are getting people are by making the promo end on December 2nd.
I don’t think Dropbox should have done that… in the meantime all companies now extend their portfolio to “clouds” – the problem with Dropbox in the end is its very expensive additional charge for more space. If they can’t lower this soon with profitability in mind, they will lose business. And, just IMO, I don’t think a nine-figure sum should be just put down without considering what it means to earn that much money with a service like Dropbox – almost impossible.
I’m planning to leave dropbox just need to get the hang of it with icloud a bit more
I’m planning to leave dropbox just need to get the hang of it with icloud a bit more
Except that Steve 6-8 times that.
though iCloud is free, it doesn’t offer the same services as dropbox – ask any iDisk user
I was hoping that I dont need dropbox anymore when iCloud was launched. Because I didnt wan’t to use 2 different programs. But I realised that I need Dropbox even more now, as Apple just got rid of iDisk and iCloud can not make up for it.
I use Dropbox minimally as I have concerns over their security.
I am hoping iCloud will replace DB…but I don’t yet fully understand the differences between them.
Why, Michel, do you say you need DB even more, now that iC is available?
Did they do the right thing? Personally I would have “dropped” Dropbox (sorry, couldn’t resist) right into Steve Jobs hands. That kind of an offer is too hard to pass up.