Contact: Erin Zion Scott Denne
Dropbox nabs another collaboration startup as the file sync and sharing vendor expands its communications and collaboration products to shore up sales to businesses. The announcement that Dropbox has picked up Droptalk, which makes a messaging app focused on sharing files and Web content, marks its third collaboration acquisition in as many months.
This strategy stands in contrast to Dropbox’s competitors, most notably Box and Hightail, which have recently reached for security firms to make their offerings business-compatible. However, it’s worth noting that Dropbox’s business ambitions are mostly in the SMB space, and it doesn’t have much traction among enterprise customers, where the bar for security would be higher.
Though Dropbox is a marquee name in file sharing, the sector is commoditizing rapidly (as we pointed out here and here) and is crowded with dozens of startups and some of the biggest names in tech. Layering on collaboration capabilities can help Dropbox alter the terms of its competition and is certainly a more attractive option than vying on price alone – an option that would quickly become onerously expensive, even for a heavily funded company like Dropbox.
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