Timeline of Dropbox

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The content on this page is forked from the English Wikipedia page entitled "Timeline of Dropbox". The original page still exists at Timeline of Dropbox. The original content was released under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License (CC-BY-SA), so this page inherits this license.

This is a timeline of online file storage and collaboration service Dropbox.

Big picture

Time period Key developments at Dropbox
2007–2010 Dropbox launches. It goes from 100,000 registered users in September 2008 to over 4 million in January 2010.
2011–2016 Dropbox reaches 50 million registered users in October 2011, and then 400 million registered users in June 2015.

Numerical and visual data

Google Scholar

The following table summarizes per-year mentions on Google Scholar as of December 14, 2021.

Year Dropbox
2008 4,150
2009 11,500
2010 9,380
2011 8,280
2012 10,800
2013 12,900
2014 14,500
2015 16,100
2016 18,200
2017 16,800
2018 16,700
2019 13,300
2020 14,400
Dropbox gscho.png

Google Trends

The image below shows Google Trends data for Dropbox (Service), from September 2008 to January 2021, when the screenshot was taken. Interest in the topic is also ranked by country and displayed on world map.[1]

Dropbox gt.jpg

The comparative chart below shows Google Trends data for Dropbox (Search term) and Google drive (Search term), from January 2008 to February 2021, when the screenshot was taken. Interest is also ranked by country and displayed on world map.[2]

Dropbox and Google Drive gt.jpg

Google Ngram Viewer

The chart below shows Google Ngram Viewer data for Dropbox, from 2008 to 2019.[3]

Dropbox ngram.jpg

Wikipedia Views

The chart below shows pageviews of the English Wikipedia article Dropbox, on desktop from December 2007, and on mobile-web, desktop-spider, mobile-web-spider and mobile app, from July 2015; to January 2021.[4]

Dropbox wv.jpg

Full timeline

Year Month and date Event type Details
2005 Competition Box.com, an online file sharing and content management service for businesses, is launched. It IPOs in March 2014. [5]
2007 June 1 Company Dropbox is founded by MIT students Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, as a startup company from the American seed accelerator Y Combinator.[6]
2007 August Competition Microsoft launches Windows Live SkyDrive (later OneDrive), which also provides users with free storage.[7]
2007 December Competition SpiderOak – an online backup and file hosting service that allows users to access, synchronize and share data using a cloud-based server – is launched.
2008 March Product Dropbox creates a 3-minute video demonstration of its technology as it is meant to work, which is posted to Digg.[8] This helped its beta waiting list expand from 5,000 people to 75,000 people literally overnight.[9]
2008 September 11 Product Dropbox launches to the public, allowing anyone to get 2GB of free storage. It also announces storage pricing tiers, with 50GB Dropbox for $9.99/month, or $99.99/year.[10]
2008 November Funding Dropbox raises $6 million in Series A round led by Sequoia Capital.[11]
2009 October Product Dropbox finally acquires the dropbox.com domain.[12]
2009 December Acquisitions Steve Jobs approaches Drew Houston and suggests that Drew Houston sell Dropbox. Drew Houston cuts the pitch short and says that Dropbox is determined to stay independent. [13][14]
2010 May International Dropbox announces that it has been blocked by the Chinese government.[15][16][17][18][19]
2011 June Security TechCrunch reports that all Dropbox accounts could be accessed without password for four hours. This was later widely reported in the mainstream press and caused some doubt about Dropbox's "cloud" technology model.[20] The error was caused by an authentication code update made at 1:54 p.m. Pacific Time;[21] it was detected at 5:41 p.m. and immediately fixed. About 1% of Dropbox's users were logged in at that time; all sessions were immediately terminated. All users with compromised accounts were notified by email.[22][23]
2011 June 20 Competition Microsoft overhauls the user interface for Microsoft OneDrive, built using HTML5 technologies. The updated version featured caching, hardware acceleration, HTML5 video, quick views, cleaner arrangement of photos and infinite scrolling. Microsoft also doubled the file size limit from 50 MB to 100 MB per file. With this update, Microsoft consolidated the different entry points for SkyDrive, such as Windows Live Photos and Windows Live Office, into one single interface. Files and folders shared with a user, including those in Windows Live Groups, were also accessible in the new interface.[24]
2011 October 18 Funding With 45 million users, Dropbox raises $250M In Funding in a Series B round.[25]
2012 February Acquisitions Dropbox acquires stealth startup Cove, bringing Ruchi Sanghvi and Aditya Agarwal onto the team. [26][27]
2012 April Product Dropbox announces a new feature allowing users to automatically upload photographs or videos from camera, tablet, SD card, or smartphone. Users will be given up to 3 GB (initially 5 GB) extra space to accommodate the photographs and videos uploaded in this fashion, but the space is permanently added to the user's allowance and is not restricted to pictures. It is viewed as a move against Google's recently launched Google Drive and Microsoft's OneDrive.[28]
2012 November 12 Userbase Dropbox announces it reaches 100 million users.[29]
2012 December International Dropbox announces plans to establish its first international office in Dublin, Ireland.[30]
2012 December 19 Acquisitions Dropbox acquires Snapjoy, which provides a service for aggregating, archiving and viewing all digital photographs taken with cameras, phones, or popular photo applications. Financial terms were not released at the time of the acquisition.[31]
2013 March Acquisitions Dropbox acquires Mailbox, a sleek email platform specifically for mobile users.[32]
2013 June 6 Security The Guardian and The Washington Post publicize confidential documents suggesting Dropbox was being considered for inclusion in the National Security Agency's classified PRISM program of Internet surveillance.[33][34]
2013 November 13 Userbase Dropbox announces it reaches 200 million users.[35]
2013 November 13 Product Dropbox announces it will unveil Dropbox for businesses. [36]
2014 January Funding Dropbox raises $250 million funding round, valuing the company at $10 billion.[37]
2014 February Team Dropbox hires Dennis Woodside, who ran Motorola Mobility for Google, as its chief operating officer. [38][39]
2014 April Team Dropbox adds former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to its board. [40]
2014 April 17 Acquisitions Dropbox acquires Hackpad, a real-time collaborative text editor.[41][42]
2014 November 4 Competition Dropbox announces a partnership with Microsoft to integrate Dropbox and Microsoft Office applications on iOS, Android and the Office 365 applications on the web.[43][44][45]
2014 December Product Dropbox announces that it will open up its API to business software developers - offering a new set of tools to help integrate Dropbox’s file storage and security features with other business software. [46]
2015 February Partnerships Dropbox partners with Vodafone, a British multinational telecommunications company, to offer file storage to Vodafone's 400 million wireless customers. [47]
2015 July Team Dropbox hires its first head of sales, Thomas Hansen, who was previously senior VP of small and medium business products at Microsoft. [48]
2015 August 12 Product Dropbox announces availability of its USB security key which provides two-factor authentication to its services.[49]
2015 October 15 Product Dropbox rebrands its six-month-old product invite-only beta product Notes as Dropbox Paper, and expands the beta significantly. The product, that facilitates collaborative document editing, is available only on the web at this time.[50][51]
2015 December Product Dropbox announces it will shutter its free mobile apps Mailbox and Carousel as it focuses more on paid file storage by businesses. [52]
2016 March Product, Competition Dropbox announces that it now stores over 90% of its user data on its own infrastructure stack as it continues to wean itself off of its influence from Amazon S3.[53][54][55]
2016 April 26 Product Dropbox announces Project Infinite – a service with the goal of giving business customers local access to files no matter where they live. This means that they no longer need to store all their files on their local drives.[56]
2016 June 14 Financial Dropbox CEO Drew Houston announces that the company is free cash flow positive, but is not in a rush to IPO. Commentators note that this does not imply that the company is profitable, since free cash flow does not include a number of expenses.[57][58]
2016 August 3 Product Dropbox launches an iPhone and Android version of its document-editing app, Paper, and upgrades it from invite-only beta to open beta.[59][60]
2016 November 16 Product As part of its AdminX initiative for Dropbox Business users, Dropbox launches additional features to improve security of business documents and prevent people from accessing them through personal accounts. Admin controls are extended to Dropbox Paper. Also, Dropbox announces an infrastructure expansion in Europe and Asia, to cater to its large non-US audience. As of this date, Dropbox has more than 30 security partnerships across areas such as data loss prevention, enterprise mobility management, identity and access management, data migration, eDiscovery, and analytics.[61][62][63]

References

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  2. "Dropbox and Google Drive". Google Trends. Retrieved 16 February 2021. 
  3. "Dropbox". books.google.com. Retrieved 16 February 2021. 
  4. "Dropbox". wikipediaviews.org. Retrieved 21 February 2021. 
  5. "Box, Dropbox and Hightail Pivot to New Business Models". The New York Times. August 24, 2014. Retrieved September 11, 2016. 
  6. "About Dropbox". Dropbox, Inc. Retrieved 2013-06-03. Dropbox was founded by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi in 2007, and received seed funding from Y Combinator. 
  7. "Introducing Windows Live SkyDrive! – Windows Live". Web.archive.org. Archived from the original on December 26, 2009. Retrieved April 20, 2016. 
  8. "Digg – Google Drive killer coming from MIT Startup". Digg. Archived from the original on March 14, 2008. Retrieved April 20, 2016. 
  9. "How DropBox Started As A Minimal Viable Product". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016. 
  10. "Dropbox launches to the public!". Retrieved April 20, 2016. 
  11. "Dropbox". Crunchbase. Retrieved April 20, 2016. 
  12. Kincaid, Jason (October 13, 2009). "Dropbox Acquires The Domain Everyone Thought It Had: Dropbox.com". TechCrunch. Retrieved April 25, 2010. 
  13. Victoria Barret (October 18, 2011). "Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup". Forbes. Retrieved June 5, 2016. 
  14. "Dropbox Said No To A "Nine-Digit" Acquisition Offer From Apple, Steve Jobs". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved June 5, 2016. 
  15. "dropbox banned". techwhack. Retrieved April 15, 2010. Template:Fix/category[dead link]
  16. "dropbox blocked". neowin. Retrieved April 15, 2010. 
  17. "dropbox blocked". geek.com. Retrieved April 15, 2010. 
  18. "dropbox blocked". shanghaiist. Retrieved April 15, 2010. 
  19. "Dropbox Blocked in China". mingtiandi. Retrieved April 15, 2010. 
  20. "Dropbox's password nightmare highlights cloud risks". CNN. June 22, 2011. Any trust in the cloud is too much trust in the cloud – it's as simple as that 
  21. "Dropbox confirms security glitch—no password required". 
  22. Jason Kincaid (June 20, 2011). "Dropbox Security Bug Made Passwords Optional For Four Hours". TechCrunch. Retrieved June 20, 2011. 
  23. "dropbox.com". Blog.dropbox.com. June 20, 2011. Retrieved December 21, 2011. 
  24. Shahine, Omar (June 20, 2011). "Introducing SkyDrive for the modern web, built using HTML5". Inside Windows Live. Microsoft. Archived from the original on December 30, 2012. Retrieved 2011-06-20. 
  25. "Dropbox Raises $250M In Funding, Boasts 45 Million Users". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016. 
  26. "Dropbox Buys Cove To Bring Former Facebookers Ruchi Sanghvi And Aditya Agarwal To The Team". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved June 5, 2016. 
  27. "Dropbox May Have Just Acqui-Hired A New CTO – Business Insider". Businessinsider.com. Retrieved June 5, 2016. 
  28. "Dropbox Gets Automatic Photo Uploads, Offers 3 GB Incentive". TIME. April 27, 2012. Retrieved April 30, 2012. 
  29. By Victoria Barret, Forbes. "Dropbox Hits 100 Million Users Says Drew Houston." November 11, 2013. December 2, 2013.
  30. "Dropbox Picks Dublin for Its Second Office – Liz Gannes – News – AllThingsD". Allthingsd.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016. 
  31. Lunden, Ingrid (December 19, 2012). "Dropbox Acquires Snapjoy And Puts Photos Into Its Focus". Techcrunch.com. 
  32. "Dropbox has acquired Mailbox, TapEngage, Endorse, Foundry Hiring, Sold, Zulip, Readmill, HackPad, Loom". Upstart.bizjournals.com. Retrieved April 27, 2016. 
  33. Greenwald, Glenn (6 June 2013). "NSA taps in to internet giants' systems to mine user data, secret files reveal". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 7 June 2013. 
  34. Gellman, Barton (6 June 2013). "Documents: U.S. mining data from 9 leading Internet firms; companies deny knowledge". The Washington Post. Retrieved 7 June 2013. 
  35. Constine, Josh. "Dropbox Hits 200M Users, Unveils New For Business Client Combining Work And Personal Files". TechCrunch. Retrieved 13 November 2013. 
  36. "Dropbox Aims at Business". The New York Times. 2013-11-13. Retrieved August 27, 2016. 
  37. "Dropbox Closes Roughly $250M Round At $10B Valuation, WSJ Says". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 20, 2016. 
  38. "Dropbox hires first COO amid Google divestiture – Fortune". Fortune.com. Retrieved June 5, 2016. 
  39. "Dropbox COO Dennis Woodside profile – Business Insider". Businessinsider.com. Retrieved June 5, 2016. 
  40. "Dropbox Adds Condoleezza Rice to Board, Rankles Valley Orthodoxy - Digits". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016. 
  41. Mike Billings (April 17, 2014). "Dropbox Acquires Startups Loom, Hackpad in Push to Expand Services". WSJ. 
  42. "Hackpad is teaming up with Dropbox!". hackpad.com. Retrieved 2017-02-19. 
  43. "We're partnering with Microsoft". Dropbox. 4 November 2014. 
  44. "Dropbox and Microsoft form surprise partnership for Office integration". theverge.com. 4 November 2014. 
  45. Bass, Dina (4 November 2014). "Microsoft Teams Up With Dropbox to Target Mobile, Business Users". bloomberg.com. 
  46. "Dropbox Opens Up to Business Software Developers - Digits". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016. 
  47. "Dropbox Taps Vodafone for International Growth - Digits". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016. 
  48. "Dropbox Hires Its First Head of Sales, Longtime Microsoft Executive Thomas Hansen – Recode". Recode.net. Retrieved June 5, 2016. 
  49. "DropBox Adds USB Security Key Protection". Geek Inspector. Retrieved 2017-02-19. 
  50. "Paper is Dropbox's new vision for how teams can work together". Engadget. October 15, 2015. Retrieved December 9, 2016. 
  51. Newton, Casey (October 15, 2015). "Hands on with Paper, Dropbox's answer to Google Docs. Slick editing and rich media, but is it enough?". The Verge. Retrieved December 9, 2016. 
  52. "Dropbox Is Pulling 'Mailbox' and 'Carousel' Apps - Digits". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2016. 
  53. "Scaling to exabytes and beyond". Retrieved April 27, 2016. 
  54. Babcock, Charles (June 1, 2016). "How Dropbox Moved 500PB Of Customer Files Off AWS. With 500 petabytes of customer files to manage, Dropbox decided to become a post-cloud company. That meant moving a core operation off AWS. Here's how it was done.". InformationWeek. Retrieved December 9, 2016. 
  55. Metz, Cade (March 14, 2016). "The Epic Story of Dropbox's Exodus From the Amazon Cloud Empire". Wired Magazine. Retrieved December 9, 2016. 
  56. "Dropbox's latest idea could change the way you think about cloud storage". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 27, 2016. 
  57. Kim, Eugene (June 14, 2016). "Dropbox CEO Drew Houston just shared something Wall Street is really going to like". Business Insider. Retrieved December 9, 2016. 
  58. Roof, Katie (June 14, 2016). "Dropbox says it is cash flow positive, in no rush to IPO". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 9, 2016. 
  59. Lynley, Matthew (August 3, 2016). "Dropbox launches an iPhone and Android version of its document-editing app Paper". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 3, 2016. 
  60. Ingraham, Nathan (August 3, 2016). "Paper, Dropbox's answer to Google Docs, now has apps for iOS and Android. The service is now in open beta, too, so give it a shot.". Engadget. Retrieved December 9, 2016. 
  61. Baesman, Rob (November 16, 2016). "Introducing enhancements to AdminX, Paper, and our infrastructure". Dropbox. Retrieved December 9, 2016. 
  62. Miller, Ron (November 16, 2016). "Dropbox Business updates focus on increasing enterprise security credibility". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 9, 2016. 
  63. Kriel, Collen (November 24, 2016). "Dropbox Business gets additional enterprise security, admin controls, more". Silicon Angle. Retrieved December 9, 2016. 

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