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Showing posts with label Dropbox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dropbox. Show all posts

Friday, November 9, 2018

11/09/2018 04:06:00 PM

Dropbox Integrates With Google Cloud Identity for Advanced Security Features

The company announced a series of partnerships and cross-platform security integrations that aim to bring more advanced security features to Dropbox Business customers.


Dropbox on Thursday announced a series of partnerships and cross-platform security integrations that aim to bring more advanced security features to Dropbox Business customers. Specifically, the cloud-based file sharing company is partnering with Google Cloud Identity (GCI) and expanding its current partnerships with BetterCloud, Coronet, and Proofpoint.

Yes, it's possible to upgrade a 2018 Mac mini's RAM. No, it's not easy
With the new Google Cloud Identity partnership, Dropbox said the goal is to give business users more flexibility to work across devices and platforms while maintaining security. Announced as a standalone service earlier this month, GCI refers to Google's set of cloud identity tools -- based on a security framework called BeyondCorp -- that businesses can use to manage users, devices, apps and access.

With a new Dropbox integration, CGI can be used to manage access to Dropbox Business accounts as employees join, move or leave an organization. Users can also access their Dropbox accounts with their Google login credentials and multi-factor authentication.

The new BetterCloud integration aims to give admins more tools to monitor workflows and team usage of Dropbox Business accounts, while the Coronet integration will let admins create content policies, control sharing permissions, and remediate violations. Meantime, the integration with Proofpoint will let admins detect at-risk accounts and quarantine potential file risks in real-time.

Dropbox said the new integrations -- which are just the latest in a series of admin features the cloud storage company has rolled out over the last two years -- will become available to Dropbox Business customers by the end of 2018.



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Thursday, August 23, 2018

8/23/2018 04:39:00 PM

Dropbox Embraces AMD EPYC Single-Socket Platform to Support Future Growth.

Dropbox becomes the latest company to embrace AMD EPYC and see a benefit to single-socket platform adoption.


Dropbox, with its 500 million users and 300,000 business customers, becomes the latest in a long list of companies to see a future in embracing AMD's one-socket EPYC platform to support future growth and refresh its infrastructure to meet the compute workloads that the company faces.

According to a blog post by Scott Aylor, AMD's CVP and GM of datacentre and embedded solutions, Dropbox will utilize AMD EPYC 7351P one-socket processor servers to "support future growth beyond its current capabilities and refresh its existing infrastructure for its most demanding compute workloads."

The EPYC 7351P is a 16-core/32-thread processor with a base speed of 2.5GHz and a boost frequency of 2.9GHz, and a TDP range of 155 to 170W.

Each EPYC processor package can support up to 2TB of DDR4 RAM over eight channels, and has 128 PCIe lanes means that the platform has more than two-and-a-half times the I/O density of a processor such as Intel's Xeon SP Series.

"AMD EPYC is a compelling processor option for our computer technology, providing Dropbox with the technical specifications required to support the workloads that matter to teams and our individual users," said Rami Aljamal, Head of Hardware Engineering and Supply Chain at Dropbox. "We are excited to deploy EPYC processors and look forward to working closely with AMD in the future."

EPYC, which launched in June of 2017, had a feature list was incredibly disruptive:

  1. Up to 32 high-performance "Zen" cores
  2. Single- and dual-socket support
  3. Eight DDR4 channels per CPU
  4. Up to 2TB RAM per CPU
  5. Infinity Fabric for both die-to-die and socket-to-socket interconnect
  6. 128 PCIe lanes
  7. Dedicated security subsystem, including Secure Memory Encryption (SME) specifically designed to protect virtual machines and containers from each other
  8. Integrated chipset
  9. Socket-compatible with next-gen EPYC processors
  10. Processor pricing ranges from $400 to over $2,000 per chip.
One of the truly revolutionary things about EPYC was its single-socket capability. And not just single-socket, but what AMD called "the industry's first no-compromise one-socket solutions."

Prior to EPYC, if you were looking for a fully-featured, high-performance server in a single-socket configuration, you were out of luck.

Over the past twelve months, EPYC has seen a huge number of wins across the server industry, both among server partners such as Dell and HPE, and from companies looking to benefit from the new silicon, companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo Japan, Packet, Baidu, Cisco, and Cray.



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Friday, July 27, 2018

7/27/2018 09:22:00 PM

Dropbox Rolls Out Gmail Add-on

The aim is to make it easier and faster to search for attachments and links across multiple senders in an email thread.

Dropbox Rolls Out Gmail Add-on

Dropbox is rolling out its promised integration with Gmail following a platform partnership it formed with Google's G Suite earlier this year.

The partnership, announced in March, kicked off a notable alliance between the two companies which had long been competitive rivals. In its IPO disclosure, Dropbox admitted that it competes with Google in both the cloud storage and content collaboration markets.

Dropbox now sees the G Suite tie-up as a way to ensure that it's offering customers a unified home for content and conversations. Dropbox posits that more than 50 percent of its customers also use G Suite, but before the partnership, there hadn't been a way to store G Suite docs and files inside of Dropbox.

That said, the new Gmail add-on presents all email attachments, Dropbox-linked files, and folders in a centralized, native Gmail panel. The aim is to make it easier and faster to search for attachments and links across multiple senders in an email thread.

Dropbox said the add-on is generally available today.




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Friday, June 22, 2018

6/22/2018 09:13:00 PM

Dropbox conveys SMR stockpiling tech to reinforce Magic Pocket

Dropbox hopes to have a fourth of its Magic Pocket foundation on SMR drive limit by 2019. 


Dropbox said Tuesday that it's extending the limit of its Magic Pocket framework venture with the mass arrangement of Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) drive innovation. 

The Magic Pocket venture alludes to Dropbox's own exabyte-scale framework that it's been working since 2016 as it weans off of Amazon Web Services. As indicated by Dropbox, Magic Pocket is intended to push the limits of the organization's stage while as yet speaking to the its center record stockpiling roots. Since propelling in 2016, Dropbox said Magic Pocket has spared the organization $75 million in working expenses. 

By mixing Magic Pocket with SMR, Dropbox said it will build its general stockpiling thickness, diminish the organization's physical server farm impression, and give critical cost investment funds. In addition, Dropbox claims this is the first run through any organization will utilize SMR to grow limit at exabyte scale. 

To influence the SMR arrangement to happen, Dropbox said it sourced SMR circle drives from outsider providers, composed a bespoke equipment and segment environment around it, and made new programming to guarantee its similarity with existing Magic Pocket engineering. 

Dropbox hopes to have a fourth of its Magic Pocket framework on SMR drive limit by 2019. In the coming months, Dropbox said it intends to open source the test programming it made amid its turn to SMR innovation, helping different organizations qualify SMR for their own particular undertaking stockpiling conditions. 

"Making our own particular stockpiling framework was a gigantic mechanical test, yet it's as of now paid profits for our clients and our business," said Quentin Clark, SVP of building, item, and outline at Dropbox. "As more groups receive Dropbox, SMR innovation will enable us to scale our foundation by giving more prominent adaptability, effectiveness, and cost funds. We're additionally eager to make this innovation open-source so different organizations can profit by it."



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Thursday, May 10, 2018

5/10/2018 07:31:00 PM

Dropbox rolls out new AdminX tools for data management

The new updates include team selective sync, member space limits, directory restrictions, and the ability to disable downloads of shared links.


Dropbox is rolling out new data security tools for Dropbox Business teams. The new updates include team selective sync, member space limits, directory restrictions, and the ability to disable downloads of shared links.

More specifically, the new team management tools give admins the ability to export member data reports to CSV files directly from the admin console. Dropbox said the feature will let admins analyze data and simplify internal processes like software budget allocation and security auditing.

Also on the team management side is the ability to convert individuals' Dropbox Business accounts to personal accounts when they leave a team. This will let them keep their unshared and shared files and folders while restricting their access to team-owned folders.

On the user control front, the update lets admins disable downloads of shared links, and also restrict directory access so certain individuals won't appear in a team member list.

Finally, new deployment tools will let admins specify which team folders will be synced to users' computers by default, as well as set caps on member space limits to prevent teams from exceeding their storage plans.

The update is the latest in a series of admin features the cloud storage company has rolled out over the last year as part of its AdminX initiative, which aims to improve the way businesses and teams use its platform. Dropbox said last year that AdminX has helped the company grow to half a billion registered users and ramp up adoption with businesses.


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Monday, March 26, 2018

3/26/2018 09:36:00 PM

Dropbox looks to raise $648 million in upcoming IPO

Dropbox also agreed to sell $100 million in stock to Salesforce Ventures in a private placement following the IPO.


Dropbox will seek to raise $648 million when its shares hit the public market later this month.

The cloud-based file sharing company updated its S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and revealed that it will offer 36 million shares priced between $16 and $18 a piece.

At the high end of that range, Dropbox would come out with a valuation of $7.9 billion, which is still below the $10 billion valuations it received with its last private funding round in 2014.

Dropbox also agreed to sell $100 million in stock to Salesforce Ventures in a private placement "at a price per share equal to the initial offering price," the filing revealed. The stock investment comes just days after the companies announced a substantial integration pact that will more tightly link their platforms for joint customers. Salesforce Ventures first invested in Dropbox back in 2014.

Dropbox disclosed in its initial S-1 form that it is not yet profitable, having lost $111.7 million in 2017. But the losses are shrinking each year as revenue climbs. The company said it earned $1.1 billion in revenue last year, up from $603.8 million in 2015. Dropbox has been cash flow positive since 2016.

Meanwhile, Dropbox said it currently has 11 million paying users, which is far less than the 500 million registered users who access its services for free. The company said it generates average revenue of $111.91 per paying user.

Expectedly, the company disclosed in the filing that its business depends on the ability to convert registered users into paying users, and also the ability to retain and upgrade those paying users.

Dropbox will list on NASDAQ under the stock ticker DBX.


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Saturday, March 24, 2018

3/24/2018 02:59:00 AM

We Found 22 Cloud Services your Business Definitely Needs To Try

When it comes to cloud services and software-as-a-service (SaaS), we're all familiar with the usual players. But there's a huge world of opportunity and available resources beyond Google, Dropbox, Salesforce, Amazon, and Microsoft.


When it comes to cloud services and software-as-a-service (SaaS), we're all familiar with the usual cloud providers. But for small businesses and larger enterprises, there's a huge world of opportunity and available resources beyond those best-known cloud storage services and cloud computing services: Google, Dropbox, Salesforce, Amazon, and Microsoft.

In this guide to services for business, we're looking at 22 incredibly valuable services that solve real-world business problems. A few you may have heard about before. Many may be new to you. All are capable of providing nearly instant benefit -- without you having to make any infrastructure investment whatsoever.

With that, let's get started with our first cloud-based service...

1) APPROVAL DONKEY

Cloud-based approval workflows

Free version: Up to three workflows
Plus program: $13 per month

How many times has a project come to a screaming halt, simply because the next approval in the chain never happened?

Often, these bottlenecks aren't because a higher-up didn't actually want the project to go through, but simply never got around to signing off. The approval email might have gotten lost or, if you're still on paper approvals, buried in a huge inbox mound.

Approval Donkey (which has our nomination for best cloud-based service name ever) automates this process. It can integrate with hundreds of other applications using Zapier (see below) and provides a centralized interface. You can set up certain approval workflow patterns, which move the approval along a pre-defined chain. You can also track the status of any approval and see if there are any bottlenecks.

If you're dealing with accounting and finance approval flows, stakeholder approval flows, or operations and administration approval flows, give Approval Donkey a try. There's a free version that allows for up to three workflows, and a Plus program at $13 a month.

2) ASANA

Work manager application

Free version: Up to 15 members, limited features
Paid version: $9.99 per month

Imagine if your favorite to-do manager and Slack got together and had kids. That's Asana. Asana is a project management app that organizes projects across teams. It manages sets of tasks across people and groups and allows for connected conversations, reporting, and tracking.

What makes Asana stand out is that all of the project-related work is transparent to the team members, visible, and easily accessible. If you've been managing projects through a pile of spreadsheets or emailing attachments to everyone, Asana will be like a breath of fresh air. All your project's documents can also be embedded with the project, for everyone to work on and collaborate together.

Asana has a free version for up to 15 members, but it has limited features. If you want to expand beyond 15 people to large teams, SSO, custom fields, specialty dashboards, and the rest of the project management kitchen sink, Asana runs $9.99 a month. There's also an enterprise version if you need to go really big.

3) AIRTABLE

Mix of cloud-based spreadsheet and database

Free version: Manage up to 1,200 elements, limited features
Paid version: $10 per month

Airtable is an interesting product. It's billed as part spreadsheet and part database, but it's really a flexible information manager that can look a bit like Trello, a bit like Google Docs, and a bit like a structured Evernote.

Airtable allows you to store information, structure it, share it among collaborators, and work on it in a variety of forms. The key is that Airtable comes with a wide range of templates, so you can structure your data to look like an inventory, a Kanban chart, a calendar, a catalog, or whatever fits your project.

If Asana helps you manage the stages of your project and the inter-team communication, Airtable helps you manage the stuff that your project is made up of. There's a free version that lets you manage up to 1,200 elements and store up to 2GB of data, along with two weeks of revision tracking. Move up to $10 per month and you get more data, more items, and six months of revision tracking, along with support.

4) BACKBLAZE

Easy and less expensive cloud storage

Free version: N/A
Paid version: $5 per machine every month

Backblaze is trying to straddle two aspects of the cloud storage market: End-user backups and object-based cloud storage.

In the end-user backup market, they're competing with the likes of Carbonite and CrashPlan by providing a very simple-to-setup backup mechanism for end-user machines. Let's be clear: This isn't cloud sync like Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive. You're not mirroring portions of your cloud storage on your local machine. Instead, Backblaze offers a set-it-and-forget-it backup system that keeps copies of your local data (including some system files) in the cloud.

For end-users, BackBlaze is $5 per machine every month. You can backup any drive inside the machine, as well as any drive connected via a USB connection. This won't back up your personal NAS boxes, but it's still pretty generous.

Backblaze also competes against object-based cloud storage like that offered by Amazon S3 and Azure. Backblaze's service is called B2. Like other object-based cloud storage providers, you're going to pay both a monthly cloud storage fee, plus a download fee for any data you want back. Backblaze's differentiation is that it's generally less expensive than the big guys, yet still offers a rich API and some nice integrations, including into the Synology NAS boxes we reviewed previously.

There's one other thing to like about Backblaze: Its data center approach. It regularly reports on hard drive reliability and even the challenges of running a data center. In a world where most cloud storage providers are opaque, Backblaze's transparency is a breath of fresh air.

5) CLOUDPHONE

Virtual PBX

Free version: N/A
Paid version: Starts at $12 per month for one local number

When my first small business started to grow into offices, we needed a phone system. This was back in the days when landlines were common. We needed a way for calls to come into a central location and for them to be routed to individual extensions.

I wound up paying way more than I wanted for an AT&T Spirit system, which was the smallest PBX-like system I could find that could handle enough employees. It required wiring, physical phones, a central box, and so much more. It was a hassle.

Today, of course, we have the cloud. We don't need physical boxes or phones. We don't even need landlines. But we still need to be able to route calls, have automated attendant services, business voice mail, conference calling, and business phone numbers (because no one wants to give out a personal number to every customer).

Enter Cloud Phone. It's like having a fully-functional corporate PBX without all the hassle. It turns individual smartphones into business phones, allowing your employees to work anywhere and still be on the corporate phone system.

There's no free plan, but the company has a 30-day money back guarantee. The base plan starts at $12 per month for one local number and three extension and up to $49 per month for five local numbers and unlimited extensions.

6) DIGITAL OCEAN

Alternative to AWS

Free version: N/A
Paid version: Starts at $5 per month

Digital Ocean provides IaaS (infrastructure as a service) services. You can create virtual machines in the cloud, load them up with resources, and operate them as if they were physical servers. In addition to cloud-based virtual machines, Digital Ocean recently added cloud-based object storage.

What I like about Digital Ocean over Amazon's AWS is the simplicity. You create droplets (Digital Ocean's term for virtual machines), provision them with RAM and processing power, decide what region you want them to run it, and you're up. You can preload the VMs with a relatively wide range of configurations, from WordPress to Ubuntu, a pre-built LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) stack, an e-commerce stack, and more.

Don't get me wrong. You still need some solid geek skills. Once you start configuring your own virtual Linux environment, you're on your own for the Linux part of the project. But setting up the actual virtual machine droplets and performing IaaS administration is a breeze.

Increasing RAM footprint is pretty much a button-press away. You can easily scale up and down RAM, but once you increase your virtual disk storage, you can't go back without migrating your configuration to another droplet.

Standard droplets and spaces start at $5 per month. Depending on what kind of resource load you need, that can go up (and up). Digital Ocean is pretty scalable. I wouldn't want to run Netflix or Hulu on it, but for most good-sized projects, Digital Ocean is definitely a good IaaS solution.

7) DRIP

Marketing automation

Free version: For less than 100 subscribers
Paid version: Starts at $43 per month for up to 2,500 subscribers

Drip bills itself as "the CRM Salesforce didn't build," but that's both confusing and misleading. Drip isn't a Salesforce-style CRM at all. Instead, it's a marketing automation tool that automates customer interactions, mostly via email. Think of it as a list manager on steroids.

Drip takes its name from the practice of drip marketing. The idea of this is that a pre-written set of messages are sent out to customers or prospects over a period of time. One message might welcome a prospect to a mailing list. Another might introduce one or two products. Another might provide an "exclusive discount," and so on.

The Drip service integrates with many different shopping carts and lead capture tools. Once a customer's contact is brought into Drip, it can be subject to any number of campaigns, which are drip mailings sent out over time. This is a very powerful way to maintain customer engagement and to do so without direct labor on the part of individual sales folks or marketers.

If you have less than 100 subscribers, Drip is free. It's $43 per month for up to 2,500 subscribers. Drip's prices go up as you add subscribers. For that rate, you can have an unlimited number of "sends," or the messages you send out.

8) HELP SCOUT

Help desk software

Free version: N/A
Paid version: Base $10-a-month program per support provide, requires at least three provider licenses

Help Scout helps your small business manage support interactions with customers. While the core of Help Scout is a shared email support environment, Help Scout has integrations that allow it to manage incoming voice calls, voice mail, and more.

Each customer interaction gets a ticket. Help Scout can route customer requests to individual agents, as well as prevent collisions (when more than one agent tries to manage a ticket). The product has a support chat component as well as a centralized knowledge base, pre-canned replies, customer satisfaction ratings, and automated workflows.

We like Help Scout a lot because it's easy to set up, but it can be extended in so many ways, whether that's integrating into Salesforce, your e-commerce system, or just your website.

There's a base $10-a-month program per support provider, but you need to purchase at least three provider licenses. Sadly, individual developers managing their own support need not apply. If you have a greater number of support providers, there are more advanced programs that add workflow, add providers, and add inboxes. The company does offer a free 15-day trial.

9) HOOTSUITE

Social media management

Free version: Up to three social profiles
Paid version: Starts at $29 per month for 10 profiles

Despite (or, perhaps, because of) its odd mix of what-I-ate-for-breakfast reports, random news, Presidential tweets, and cat pictures, social media has become an incredibly powerful force for corporate communications.

The problem for marketing managers is that the signal-to-noise ratio favors the noise. Without help, it's almost impossible to sift through all the chaos across services ranging from Twitter to Facebook to YouTube to Instagram (and others) to pick out what's important to your company.

That's where Hootsuite comes in. Hootsuite allows you to schedule and prepare corporate messaging across many popular social networks, listen for requests from consumers and prospects, watch for key trends, and keep up with the constant flow. We particularly like the browser extension that allows you to immediately grab the article you're currently reading and share it to your audience or queue it for later transmission.

There's a free plan for monitoring up to three social profiles. The price then goes up, starting at $29 per month for 10 profiles and one user all the way up to enterprise levels, where an entire marketing team can manage tons of social profiles across different departments or groups.

Let's be clear about one thing: If you're not doing social listening, you're putting your company at risk. You need a social media management tool like Hootsuite (or one of its competitors, like Buffer), because that's where your customers are at all times.

10) HUBSPOT

Inbound marketing

Free version: Base plan
Paid version: Goes up as you add services

Most of us are familiar with the concept of outbound marketing. That's the practice of sending mailings, making phone calls, and otherwise putting ourselves in front of customers. It's what you'd consider traditional marcom.

Inbound marketing is a buzzword for what is, essentially, the opposite. It's creating an environment where you attract interactions to you. Inbound marketing can be used to drive all the content creation, social media, SEO optimization, mail list subscription campaigns, and other activities where customers self-select their interest in your products.

HubSpot manages this process. It does a bunch of the things other services in this directory perform (like social media monitoring, mail list management, landing pages, SEO), but it integrates it all together into one platform. Rather than logging into a bunch of different services that probably won't share data, you can consolidate it all in HubSpot.

HubSpot isn't for everyone. Pricing is free for a base plan, but it quickly goes up as you add services. But if you're running a marketing-oriented company and you want a single, central solution to manage most of the process, HubSpot may be ideal for you.

11) JIRA

Beyond bug and issue tracking

Free version: N/A
Paid version: Starts at $10 per month for up to 10 users

Jira is a tool for software development teams. That doesn't mean you need to be running a software company to benefit from Jira. Any organization that has software projects -- whether for internal use or for market -- can benefit from the tools Jira provides.

Jira is known for being a bug and issue tracker. It allows you to create a database of bugs and development issues, track how they're being handled, and follow-up on fixes and solutions.

But Jira adds a number of agile team coordination tools, including scrum and kanban boards. While the boards look similar, Jira's implementation of scrum focuses on schedules and sprints, while its kanban implementation focuses on ongoing improvement. The Jira scrum boards also provide for management and roles.

If you're thinking Jira's scrum and kanban boards look a lot like Trello, you'd be right. Jira is owned by Atlassian, which bought Trello last year for $425 million. That's a heck of a lot of money for a virtual post-it note board, but once you start looking at agile development, the synergies become obvious.

Beyond organizing agile development, Jira also provides for a wide range of powerful reporting oriented at the agile development process. This allows teams of developers to work together while also managing workflow, production velocity, and quality.

Jira offers a free seven-day trial, and then it's $10 per month for up to 10 users. If you have more than 10 users, the price is $7 per month for every user. There's also an enterprise solution, so if your small team grows big, Jira can grow with you.

12) MAILCHIMP

Mailing list management

Free version: Up to 2,000 subscribers and a 12,000 emails

Paid version: Pricing goes up, depending on the number of subscribers and services used

If you can have an approval donkey, you might as well have a mail chimpanzee. MailChimp is a mailing list management service that, like Drip and HubSpot, does basic marketing automation via email.

What we like about MailChimp is that its very careful about list management, has a great management dashboard, and excellent integrations with tools like shopping carts and blogging systems. The company also provides sign-up templates and other tools that allow you to easily integrate mailing list capture into your website.

Recently, MailChimp added display ad retargeting to its offerings. This allows you to display ads in Google's advertising network automatically. The idea is that if someone visits your site, they may get distracted. But as they surf other sites, they'll see Google ads for your products and services. By doing this automatically as part of MailChimp's automation process, you don't need to schedule or run ads. Just pay Google for the clicks as they come in.

MailChimp provides a free plan for up to 2,000 subscribers and a generous 12,000 emails a month. After that, pricing goes up, depending on the number of subscribers you maintain and the services you use.

13) SHOPIFY

Turn-key ecommerce

Free version: N/A
Paid version: Starts at $9 per month for lite version

There are a ton of ecommerce and web hosting cloud providers, but we chose to spotlight Shopify because it's about as complete an ecommerce experience as you're likely to find.

Not only will Shopify set up an online store for you, the company offers mobile apps and two variations of "chip and swipe" readers for use in physical point-of-sale retail environments. The company has a full cash register option as well. Add in integrations with Pinterest, Facebook selling, and Amazon, and you have an end-to-end selling system that gives you a lot of choice in setting up both (or either) your online store or physical selling environment.

We like how Shopify comes with a bunch of nice templates, and for those of you running online shops, there are tight shipping integrations with DHL, UPS, and the USPS.

Shopify offers a 14-day free trial, a $9 per month lite version, and then it starts at $29 per month for a basic plan that provides a whole host of services. There are transaction fees for credit card processing, but they're in line with most other services.

14) SURVEYMONKEY

Survey building and tracking

Free version: Unlimited surveys with up to 10 questions and a hundred responses

Paid version: Services start at $34 per month and go up depending on how many respondents and how many team members
Earlier, we showed you MailChimp. Now, we're looking at SurveyMonkey. For the record, chimps are not monkeys. Chimpanzees are actually members of the great ape family, have longer life spans, and are greater tool users. That said, SurveyMonkey is a great tool for researching opinions and determining sentiment.

As you might have guessed, SurveyMonkey lets you design and field surveys online. Surveys can be simple, or have multiple stages based on the information you're trying to gather. What we particularly like about SurveyMonkey is the many different types of questions and formats you can include in your survey. You can even turn a survey into a quiz.

Additionally, SurveyMonkey supports robust report and analysis tools, allowing you to explore the data you've gathered in a variety of ways -- including real-time results.

Of particular note is an add-on service offered by SurveyMoney, where it'll find folks to fill out your surveys. So, if you need to gather data and you don't have an available audience, SurveyMonkey can help you get one. That, alone, can be a huge boon for certain projects.

The company offers a generous free version that allows unlimited surveys with up to 10 questions and a hundred responses. Beyond that, services start at $34 per month and go up depending on how many respondents and how many team members you have. The company also offers enterprise services, particularly for measuring customer satisfaction.

15) TEACHABLE

Cloud-based learning management system

Free version: N/A
Paid version: Starts at $39 per month for a basic plan

Online learning is a fast-growing field. Not only have traditional universities embraced online learning as a way to extend their reach, many companies and trainers have found they can reach a wider audience and bring their knowledge to more people.

The appeal is strong to learners as well. Folks are busy and need to fit in their learning process around work and life responsibilities. Online learning allows students to learn where and when they want, at whatever pace works for them.

Teachable helps create online courses. It combines the necessary learning management features of course preparation, grading, and reporting with the business necessities of a great landing page and payment processing. In addition, Teachable allows you to create quizzes and group class discussions. It also provides integrations with conferencing and video collaboration software.

Teachable starts at $39 per month for a basic plan. Unfortunately, the company does keep a full 5 percent of fees paid. If you want to avoid these transaction fees, you'll need to upgrade to the $99 per month professional plan, which also adds additional services and priority support.

16) TWILIO

Add voice services and SMS messages to cloud apps

Free version: N/A
Paid version: Pricing is pay as you go

Twilio is another service aimed mostly at software developers. Twilio provides a series of communications APIs (applications programming interfaces) that developers can use in their applications. These include inbound and outbound SMS messaging, voice, and chat.

What makes Twilio particularly interesting is that the company provides all the communications infrastructure to back-end the communications services. This means that if you want to add SMS messaging into your app, all you need to do is add the code. There's no need to negotiate with carriers, build out infrastructure, or anything else. Just code and go. The same applies for voice services, chat, video conferencing, screen sharing, and more.

Pricing is pay as you go, which means you can pay a pre-determined fee based on the number of messages, number of calls, etc. There is a free layer for basic coding, but the company watermarks the interactions. That allows you to get a feel for how the code will work without paying, but you'll definitely need to upgrade to a paying account before customers encounter your apps.

17) UNBOUNCE

Drag and drop landing pages

Free version: N/A
Paid version: Entry-level program is $79 per month, pricing goes up for more features and landing pages

In the world of web analytics, the bounce rate is a measure of how many visitors do a quick hit and split on a webpage. This happens often as a result of a search. A user finds a result in a search that seems interesting and clicks into the site -- only to find that the destination site doesn't have what he or she was hoping to find. That user then leaves, bouncing on out.

Unbounce is a service that helps you build landing pages that... wait for it... bounce less. Hence the name Unbounce. The service has a webpage builder with a large array of very highly customizable templates. You can drag and drop elements to create the destination page that best meets your needs.

Unbounce also allows you to A/B test your pages, so you can experiment with different approaches and see which format works better. You can also use tools for lead capture, capture on scroll, and more. You can test and customize your pages, so they work well on mobile devices as well as computer screens.

Unbounce offers a 30-day free trial. After that, the entry-level program is $79 per month, which gets you 75 published landing pages. Prices go up, but so do the features and number of landing pages. The company also offers an agency program, so if you build pages for your clients, you'll have special tools to help you manage those projects.

18) WUFOO

Online form generator and database

Free version: Up to five forms and 100 form entries
Paid version: Base price of $19 per month, pricing goes up with more forms and features

If there is any category of SaaS service that has an almost unending number of similar service providers, its online forms. You can even build very powerful forms right in Google's apps. That said, we chose to spotlight forms-builder WuFoo pretty much (OK, mostly) because of its name. It's whimsical, and who doesn't need a bit of whimsy these days?

Actually, we really like that WuFoo goes beyond traditional form-filling by allowing you to design forms that upload files. That way, you can build out a form that captures more than just text. You can build a form that captures images, PDFs, or other files as well.

Another feature we like is that WuFoo integrates with many other web services, ranging from CRMs to project management services. This allows you to extend your existing applications with custom forms and have the mash-up work well together. WuFoo forms can also be integrated with payment processing services, so you can create forms that result in transactions.

WuFoo is free for up to five forms and 100 form entries. If you want the file upload feature or other integrations, you'll need to pay the base price of $19 per month. Pricing goes up as you add more forms and more features. You can start accepting payments with their $39 per month plan. WuFoo is owned by SurveyMonkey, the survey service we spotlighted earlier in this guide.

19) XERO

Accounting alternative to QuickBooks

Free version: N/A
Paid version: Starts at $9 per month

If there's one thing you never want to see in your banking software, it's a zero (or negative) balance. On the other hand, if you're looking for accounting software, you might want to consider Xero. It's pronounced the same, but has an X.

Xero is often viewed head-to-head against QuickBooks Online. In reviews, both are considered very strong competitors. QuickBooks tends to have slightly better integrations and features for the US domestic market, while Xero is particularly strong in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia.

The differences between these products is subtle. If you're building a larger business, you may find yourself drawn to the wide range of features and automation capabilities of Xero. If you want a more straightforward entry-level tool, you might prefer QuickBooks.

Xero isn't the only competitor to QuickBooks. There's also FreshBooks and ZohoBooks, along with a range of free accounting services like Wave and ZipBooks, which make their money off your transactions and add-on services.

Xero has a 30-day free trial. The company's starter plan is $9 per month for just a few invoices, transactions, and bills. In practice, you're probably not going to be able to get much value out of the service until you start using their $30 per month plan. There are also premium plans available, which allow for multiple currencies and teams of users.

20) ZAPIER

Inter-application automation system for cloud apps

Free version: Simple two-step Zaps
Paid version: $20 per month

If you've ever tried to automate smart home devices like light bulbs, you may be familiar with a service called IFTTT, which stands for IF This Then That. IFTTT connects web applications. So, if Weather Underground indicates rain, then set the living room Hue lights to blue. If the weather is going to be sunny, then set them to yellow.

The idea is the output of one web application triggers the behavior of another. Zapier takes that to a whole new level, allowing you to link more than just one input and one output, but entire sequences of behaviors across many different sites. These sequences are called Zaps.

You can, for example, create a Zap that monitors Twitter, and based on certain phrases, triggers a new help log in Help Scout while also posting a note on Slack. Or, you could create a Zap that watches Shopify, and when a new sale occurs, records the customer information in MailChimp and sends a text via Twilio.

Zapier is incredibly powerful. While it involves creating workflows, real programming skill isn't required. As such, line-of-business managers can use Zapier to create mashups quickly. While IT can certainly get involved, you're looking at mashup apps that take minutes or hours to create, not weeks or months.

Think of Zapier as the connective glue that ties together almost all the other web services highlighted in this guide. If you want to make some simple two-step Zaps, that's free. There is a 14-day trial for Zaps with more steps. After that, it's $20 per month. There's also a team-based service that allows for many users and unified billing. That's priced higher.

21) ZOHO ONE

Almost everything (and more) that G Suite does, without the Google

Free version: N/A

Paid version: $30 per month for every user annually or $35 per month for every user if you pay month-by-month

At its core, Zoho One has a web office offering, comparable with G Suite or Office Online. But there's more. Zoho One is actually 40 different web apps, along with companion mobile apps.

There's a full-featured CRM application, a help desk application, a complete accounting application, a survey system, a conferencing and chat system, an e-commerce system, an HR management system, and on and on and on.

What's more impressive is that these aren't little mini-apps. Each application is a fully-powered solution, the sort of thing a web startup would create and would be its entire business. Zoho has more than 40 of these -- and they're all very good and very complete.

There's a 30-day free trial. After that, all the apps, together in a bundle, are $30 per month for every user if you pay annually, and $35 per month for every user if you pay month-by-month.

22) ZOOM

Video conferencing alternative to Skype, GoToMeeting, and Hangouts

Free version: Free for up to 100 participants
Paid version: Basic program is $14.99 per month or $149 for a year

Zoom is a video conferencing and webinar alternative to Skype, GoToMeeting, and Hangouts. While it offers many of the same features as the market leaders, in my experience, Zoom has been a more solid application than Skype, less expensive than GoToMeeting, and has better in-the-video-conference management tools than Hangouts.

It's also easier for participants to join meetings. Unlike either Skype or Hangouts, your participants don't need to register and create an account. All they need to do is have the web URL provided for the meeting. Click it, install a little helper app, and go.

That means you're no longer stuck just before a meeting explaining to the one manager without a Gmail account how to set up a full account, just to be able to join a meeting.

Zoom is free for up to 100 participants -- as long as your meeting is less than 40 minutes. If you want your meetings to run longer and want to add cloud-based recording, scheduling, and some administration features, the basic program is $14.99 per month or $149 for a year. There's a slightly more expensive program that allows you to use your own branding (rather than that of Zoom).

Zoom also offers a webinar management system that handles registrations and promotions to create virtual, live events. That starts at $54 per month and scales to enterprise level, depending on your needs.

BUILD YOUR OWN CLOUD SERVICE WITH INMOTION HOSTING

In this guide, we've spotlighted 22 cloud-based services that can take your business to the next level. But what if you want to create your own cloud-based service? Then you need a hosting provider that can scale with you.

InMotion is the top-rated, 5-out-of-5 hosting provider in our Best Web Hosting Providers for 2018 directory. They impressed us with its wide range of services, hands-on site migration assistance, and all-SSD infrastructure.

The company also offers managed hosting (where it does a lot of the work for you), virtual private servers, and dedicated server hosting. If you want to build a web application that requires its own data center, but you don't want to build (or pay for) the data center, then InMotion is a great option.

Let's be clear, though: You don't have to start big. InMotion's basic plan starts at $3.49 per month. It also offers 24/7 support, so you can start small and just grow and grow and grow, without having to find another hosting or infrastructure solution.

WRAPPING IT ALL UP

In this guide, I've shown you 22 lesser-known web services that can take your business to new heights instantly. This goes to the core of the cloud.

When I started my first online company, it took months of infrastructure development. We had to run lines, order gear, build servers, install everything, and provision everything. It was expensive, because we had to buy enough to accommodate what we thought would be our peak demand.

If you couldn't build the infrastructure and get the dedicated internet cables run to your building, you just couldn't be in business.

Today, all it takes for your small business is a credit card number. No matter what sort of solution you want, just go to the service provider's web site, create an account, fill out a few forms, and you can be up and running. All the heavy lifting (sometimes quite literally) is done for you.

With the services we've spotlighted here, you can focus on your business operations and let each of these companies do what they do best: Provide top-notch web applications that help you find, win, and keep customers.



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Saturday, March 10, 2018

3/10/2018 12:14:00 AM

Cloud-Dropbox inks integration pact with G Suite

Dropbox said it will develop a series of cross-platform integrations that connect G-Suite's cloud tools with the Dropbox collaboration platform.


Dropbox on Thursday announced that it's partnering with Google to develop a series of cross-platform integrations that connect G-Suite's cloud tools with the Dropbox collaboration platform.

The partnership is notable because Dropbox -- which officially filed for an initial public offering last week -- and G Suite are competitive rivals. In its IPO disclosure, Dropbox noted that it competes with Google in both the cloud storage and content collaboration markets.

Dropbox now sees the G Suite tie-up -- a first for the two platforms -- as a way to ensure that it's offering customers "a unified home for content and the conversations around it." Dropbox posits that more than 50 percent of its customers also use G Suite, but until now there hasn't been a way to store G Suite files inside of Dropbox.

"We want to make it easy for our users to work across devices with the tools they love," said Tony Lee, VP of engineering at Dropbox. "We're excited to work with Google to break down silos and centralize the information teams rely on every day."

Dropbox said that the native integration will allow users to create, open, and edit Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides that live in Dropbox. Users will also have the option to open and edit compatible files directly in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides from within Dropbox. Administrators, meanwhile, will be able to manage Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides just like any other content that lives in Dropbox.

Beyond docs and files, Dropbox said it plans to develop additional native G Suite integrations with Gmail and Hangouts Chat, including Dropbox link generation from within Gmail. With Hangouts Chat, users will be able to search for, share, and preview Dropbox files in Google Hangouts.

"Our goal is to make G Suite accessible no matter what tools you bring to work, and these integrations help our shared customers better collaborate in the tools they use every day," said Ritcha Ranjan, director of product management at Google Cloud. "Working with Dropbox to make our apps work better together helps our customers focus their time on work that matters."




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Sunday, March 4, 2018

3/04/2018 03:35:00 PM

The Dropbox IPO is finally happening

In its IPO filing, Dropbox said it earned $1.1 billion in revenue last year.


It's official -- Dropbox has finally filed for an initial public offering (IPO) after years of rumors and speculation. Reports circulated last month that Dropbox had already filed confidentially, but the paperwork is in and it's shedding some light on the file-sharing company's profitability and customer base.

In short, Dropbox said it is not yet profitable, having lost $111.7 million in 2017. But the losses are shrinking each year as revenue climbs. The company said it earned $1.1 billion in revenue last year, up from $603.8 million in 2015. Dropbox has been cash flow positive since 2016.

Meanwhile, Dropbox said it currently has 11 million paying users, which is far less than the 500 million registered users who access its services for free. The company said it generates average revenue of $111.91 per paying user.

Expectedly, the company disclosed in the filing that its business depends on the ability to convert registered users into paying users, and also the ability to retain and upgrade those paying users.

Dropbox will list on NASDAQ under the stock ticker DBX, but the initial stock price is still unknown and will likely be set closer to its Wall Street debut.

The company's shares will be split into a three-class structure. Class C shareholders will have no voting rights at the company, whereas Class A and Class B shareholders will have one and 10 votes per share, respectively.

Dropbox, which was founded in 2007, has been the subject of IPO rumors since at least 2013. The last private valuation for Dropbox was $10 billion in a 2014 funding round. Some critics called it too high compared to what the value would be on public markets.

The IPO filing also revealed that CEO Drew Houston owns 24.4 percent of Dropbox and "entities affiliated with Sequoia Capital" own 24.8 percent.



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Tuesday, February 13, 2018

2/13/2018 07:37:00 PM

Microsoft takes aim at Google, Box, Dropbox with OneDrive switch offer

Microsoft has a new OneDrive-for-Business compete for the offer for organizations which currently use some of its rivals' cloud storage services.



Microsoft is taking aim at several of its cloud-storage competitors with a new OneDrive compete for the offer.

Starting today, February 6, Microsoft is enabling businesses with 500 users or more to get OneDrive for Business for free for the duration of their contracts with Google, Box, or Dropbox. Qualified users -- who must be new and not existing OneDrive for Business/Office 365 customers -- have until June 30 to take advantage of the deal.

Microsoft will allow qualified customers to use OneDrive for Business freely for up to three years, depending on the duration of their existing contracts with the three aforementioned rivals. Just to be clear, Microsoft won't compensate potential customers for what they're spending on rival storage services; Microsoft is just making OneDrive for Business available. And users will get the standalone service version of OneDrive for Business, which can be integrated with the rest of Office 365, which won't be free.

A bit of fine print worth noting: "Enterprise Agreement/Enterprise Agreement Subscription (EA/EAS), will receive a free trial for the remaining term of their Box, Dropbox, or Google contract. Customers with EA/EAS can add the Microsoft product to their EA/EAS at no charge unless and until the remaining term of the Box, Dropbox, or Google contract is less than the term of the EA/EAS, at which point the cost of the Microsoft product will be pro-rated over the term of the EA/EAS."

Microsoft is touting OneDrive for Business' cost, user interface, personalized search, security, and integration with Office 365 as competitive advantages. Microsoft officials said there are currently more than 350,000 organizations using OneDrive. Officials also note that by using a cloud-storage service that is pre-integrated with other Microsoft services, customers who go with OneDrive will have fewer vendors to manage.

Microsoft isn't backing off from its partnering strategy with this compete for the offer, officials said. Microsoft will continue to work with Box for situations where customers want Box's cloud storage and content-management services on Azure. Nor is Microsoft backing away from its integration deal with Dropbox around Office 365 and Teams.




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Monday, July 3, 2017

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Tuesday, June 20, 2017

6/20/2017 10:19:00 PM

Dropbox declares network extension to support file get to speeds

Throughout the following a while, Dropbox will turn on five new territorial quickening agents crosswise over key districts.


Dropbox is finishing on its foundation duties and growing its edge system to help record get to speeds. 

The distributed storage merchant says it's created and conveyed its own particular custom-fabricated "intermediary stack" in view of open-source foundation in its offices in North America, enhancing sync speeds and diminishing systems administration costs significantly en route. 

Throughout the following a while, Dropbox will turn on five new local quickening agents crosswise over key areas, including Sydney, Miami, Paris, Madrid and Milan. Before the finish of 2017, Dropbox says it will have an aggregate foundation impression traversing 25 offices in ten nations and four landmasses, including capacity for clients all inclusive. 

The exertion is another progression in Dropbox's Magic Pocket extend, which alludes to the organization's exabyte-scale framework that it's working to enhance execution and increment unwavering quality for Dropbox Business clients. As per Dropbox, Magic Pocket is intended to push the limits of the organization's stage while as yet speaking to its center document stockpiling roots. 

"Since we started growing our framework impression in mid 2015, we have cut systems administration costs outside of North America into equal parts while expanding our industry-driving sync speeds all around by as much as 300 percent," said Dan Williams, head of creation designing at Dropbox. 

"This is conceivable in light of the fact that we have fabricated a worldwide private system that empowers us to sidestep the mind boggling web of go-betweens that make up the Internet while sending movement straightforwardly to our own particular cloud foundation."


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Wednesday, June 14, 2017

6/14/2017 10:11:00 PM

Dropbox rolls out new admin controls for team management

The refresh is the most recent in a progression of administrator elements Dropbox has taken off throughout the most recent year as a feature of its Admin X activity.


Dropbox is taking off new stage highlights intended to give administrators more grounded client controls and more prominent perceivability into their groups' Dropbox use. 

Recently discharged components incorporate an upgraded administrator support with an attention on streamlining group administration, another web session control work that limits access to organization information, a custom-fabricated secret word quality estimator that looks at passwords against a database to judge suitability, and subdomain confirmation that controls which subdomains get access to an organization Dropbox account. 

The refresh is the most recent in a progression of administrator components the distributed storage organization has taken off in the course of the most recent year as a major aspect of its Admin X activity, which means to enhance the way organizations and groups utilize its stage. 

The primary rush of Admix X highlights patched up the administrator dashboard and included more organizer level controls for archive sharing, association, and security. Dropbox caught up with a November refresh that additional devices for brought together system control, gadget endorsements, and detailing and examining. 

In January, Dropbox reported the arrival of Smart Sync, the formal name for what was beforehand named Dropbox Project Infinite, and additionally Paper, the organization's note-taking and joint effort apparatus. 

Dropbox says the Admin X activity has helped the organization develop to a large portion of a billion enlisted clients and increase appropriation with organizations. Last June, Dropbox reported that it was income positive, and in January, CEO Drew Houston declared that Dropbox achieved $1 billion in revenue run rate "faster than some other SaaS organization ever."
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