Apple Tries To Acquire Dropbox for $800 Million, Dropbox Refuses

[carld]

Originally Posted by stonetools

many companies buy smaller companies, for various reasons, and that Apple bidding on Dropbox was neither unusual or particularly sinister

Yes, companies buy other companies all the time, but that says nothing about it being sinister or not. I know. I had a great job until my company was bought by a larger firm who cherry-picked a few engineers, fired everyone else, and dissolved the corporation. They only did it to get rid of competition so they could sell inferior equipment at higher prices. It was entirely sinister.

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by carld

Yes, companies buy other companies all the time, but that says nothing about it being sinister or not. I know. I had a great job until my company was bought by a larger firm who cherry-picked a few engineers, fired everyone else, and dissolved the corporation. They only did it to get rid of competition so they could sell inferior equipment at higher prices. It was entirely sinister.

True, it happened to HP and Compaq. But you know what? Business are business. When people start to mix feelings with that, the thing starts to affects you directly as well.

Unethical or sinister does not mean is illegal. So when keeping that in perspective and thinking in business terms, it is perfectly fine. All companies now do that all the time. There is no "good or bad" guy here. They need to survive in this competitive business world.

Not saying is sad when people got fired after merge. It happened to me that people had knowledge transfer with me about a particular project or database, knowing that they were going to lose their jobs later, but again, is business.

Big companies are not here to make us a "favor". Those companies want our money and they want us to buy ** their ** devices. You can call that device whatever you want.

I'm one of those who are really happy that AT&T merge did not occur, I like Tmobile as is. But that's business too.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by stonetools

To a large extent, services like iCloud and Dropbox largely obviate the need for SD cards.

Only for people who have neither serious security issues (Such as legal, medical or technical development work) and only for people who live work and spend their leisure where wifi and/or cellular broadband is readily available.

Also a device without a slot is limited in functionality to a far, far greater extent than those with SD slots because programs as well as data reside on SD cards and even with the fastest wifi swapping out programs takes a lot of time.

No defense of the lack of SD cards holds up well because in the end it comes down to arguing that the device is really better with less memory.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Only for people who have neither serious security issues (Such as legal, medical or technical development work) and only for people who live work and spend their leisure where wifi and/or cellular broadband is readily available.

Also a device without a slot is limited in functionality to a far, far greater extent than those with SD slots because programs as well as data reside on SD cards and even with the fastest wifi swapping out programs takes a lot of time.

No defense of the lack of SD cards holds up well because in the end it comes down to arguing that the device is really better with less memory.

Allowing SD cards present security issues of its own, mate. That's most likely the main reason why Apple did'nt put SD card slots on Ios devices. Had it done so, it would have made Ios devices a happy hunting ground for hackers. There's a reason why the government and many corporations doesn't allow the use of removable storage devices in their office computer systems. It's a reason that holds up quite well.

[djulian]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Allowing SD cards present security issues of its own, mate. That's most likely the main reason why Apple did'nt put SD card slots on Ios devices. Had it done so, it would have made Ios devices a happy hunting ground for hackers. There's a reason why the government and many corporations doesn't allow the use of removable storage devices in their office computer systems. It's a reason that holds up quite well.

Apple didn't put SD card slots in iOS devices because of Apple's seeming desire to become the primary distributor of content consumed by Apple users.

Gov't security was not the reason Apple left off the SD slot. At least, until there's some evidence to back that up, I'm extremely confident that gov't security wasn't the reason.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by djulian

Apple didn't put SD card slots in iOS devices because iOS is Apple's seeming desire to become the primary distributor of content consumed by Apple users.

Gov't security was not the reason Apple left off the SD slot. At least, until there's some evidence to back that up, I'm extremely confident that gov't security wasn't the reason.

Well, I guess you missed this sentence in my post :

Had it done so, it would have made Ios devices a happy hunting ground for hackers.

My point was that Apple was agreeing with the government that removable storage slots on a device creates a security problem. I don't know any IT person who would disagree.

[kartu]

Allowing SD cards present security issues of its own, mate. That's most likely the main reason why Apple did'nt put SD card slots on Ios devices. Had it done so, it would have made Ios devices a happy hunting ground for hackers.

Sure thing. Protecting customers from evil hackers and not charging 100$ for extra 16Gb of flash is the actual reason.

I recall there is an adapter that allows you to connect SD card to iSomethings. But note that it is an ADAPTER, obviously it has some sort of hacker protection built in.

Have you heard about "flying dutch SD cards"? They are very hard to spot. Fly real fast. Can track up to 20000 devices with unprotected SD card slot. Need only 0.42 milliseconds to hack devices. Unless it's an Apple device, protected with SD Card protection adapter.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by kartu

Sure thing. Protecting customers from evil hackers and not charging 100$ for extra 16Gb of flash is the actual reason.

I recall there is an adapter that allows you to connect SD card to iSomethings. But note that it is an ADAPTER, obviously it has some sort of hacker protection built in.

Have you heard about "flying dutch SD cards"? They are very hard to spot. Fly real fast. Can track up to 20000 devices with unprotected SD card slot. Need only 0.42 milliseconds to hack devices. Unless it's an Apple device, protected with SD Card protection adapter.

I'm sure someone, somewhere, in the universe thinks you are funny, mate. Keep posting and that person just may come across your efforts.

Meanwhile, here on Earth Prime, the average consumer doesn't give a damn about SD card slots for Ios devices. The iPhone was recently voted #1 in consumer satisfaction and the iPad has been obliterating competing tablets that have both SD card AND USB slots.

RETURNING TO THE TOPIC AT HAND, I can't see why Apple would even WANT to buy Dropbox at this stage. The time to buy Dropbox would be at the time Apple began to build its new cloud service, so that it could be fully integrated in Apple's new system. Another reason why this rumor is probably false.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by kjk

$800 million seems really low-Dropbox just got $4 Billion in funding-where did this rumor come from, and how old is it?

I thought exactly the same. $800m is a ridiculously low sum if Dropbox have already been able to drum up $4bn of VC investment (though much of that will no doubt be spread out over several years).

[charleski]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I'm sure someone, somewhere, in the universe thinks you are funny, mate.

I do.

But fair's fair, I find your 'Apple didn't include SD slots because they're a security risk' idea pretty funny too!

[wodin]

Originally Posted by kartu

You forgot to add Samsung, who shamelessly copied brilliant idea of having no SD slot in its Galaxy Tab. That's yet another reason to sue them...

Hmm, that's strange, my Samsung Galaxy Tab has a MicroSD slot, and it came with a 16 GB MicroSD card.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Only for people who have neither serious security issues (Such as legal, medical or technical development work) and only for people who live work and spend their leisure where wifi and/or cellular broadband is readily available.

Also a device without a slot is limited in functionality to a far, far greater extent than those with SD slots because programs as well as data reside on SD cards and even with the fastest wifi swapping out programs takes a lot of time.

No defense of the lack of SD cards holds up well because in the end it comes down to arguing that the device is really better with less memory.

And when the time comes that I need more storage, I don't need to by a new tablet, just a new SD card.

[carld]

Originally Posted by jocampo

Unethical or sinister does not mean is illegal. So when keeping that in perspective and thinking in business terms, it is perfectly fine. All companies now do that all the time. There is no "good or bad" guy here. They need to survive in this competitive business world.

Actually I think there are good guys and bad guys, very much so. Lots of truly awful things have been done under the cover of legality. Being legal makes them no less heinous.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Well, I guess you missed this sentence in my post :



My point was that Apple was agreeing with the government that removable storage slots on a device creates a security problem. I don't know any IT person who would disagree.

Balderdash!

I’m an IT Project Manager working for the US Army, and I can tell you unequivocally, that the only security concern that led to the banning of removable media was the introduction of viruses into Government networks via USB drives. Whether or not a phone or tablet has an SD slot is a completely different issue, but I’m pretty well convinced that the reason iDevices don’t have SD slots is the same reason they can’t be mounted as external drives on desktop/laptop computers; just another brick in the wall.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by charleski

I do.

But fair's fair, I find your 'Apple didn't include SD slots because they're a security risk' idea pretty funny too!

You'd be laughing out of the other side of your face if as a system administrator you allowed the average user to just plug any old removable storage device into your system computers , mate. In any case this wankery about SD cards is irrelevant to the thread topic.