????所有風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資家和天使投資人近來津津樂道的新創(chuàng)企業(yè)不再是社交媒體公司，也不是兜售優(yōu)惠券的團(tuán)購網(wǎng)站?？萍冀绗F(xiàn)在的寵兒是Dropbox。該公司成立于4年前，旨在向個(gè)人和企業(yè)用戶提供云計(jì)算服務(wù)。云計(jì)算這個(gè)詞可謂包羅萬象，囊括了各種通過互聯(lián)網(wǎng)提供的服務(wù)。

????畢業(yè)于麻省理工學(xué)院的杜魯?休斯頓在2007年和他人一道創(chuàng)立了Dropbox。當(dāng)時(shí)，休斯頓經(jīng)常找不到自己的USB，并因此深感不便。由于無法找到更便捷的替代品，他就像許多企業(yè)家一樣，開始自己動(dòng)手開發(fā)。

????Dropbox允許用戶在“電子存儲箱”里存放圖片、個(gè)人文檔、音樂等數(shù)碼文件，用戶幾乎可以通過任何互聯(lián)網(wǎng)設(shè)備訪問和分享這些文件。Dropbox的優(yōu)勢在于易用性。你只需下載該工具，創(chuàng)建賬號，接下來就可以使用了。用戶能將自己所有的數(shù)碼文件都放到一個(gè)位于云端的虛擬文件夾里，并能通過Dropbox的應(yīng)用程序和網(wǎng)頁操作自己所存放的文件，就好像它們存放在普通的電腦文件夾里一樣。用戶還可以在圖片庫里瀏覽圖片，或是將其分享給其它非Dropbox用戶。

????Forrester分析師弗蘭克?吉列特表示：“他們說道，‘瞧，你不用在自己機(jī)器里一個(gè)一個(gè)地操作文件夾，你只用操作Dropbox的一個(gè)文件夾就夠了，它好用極了。’Dropbox的高度集中性令人驚艷，給大家留下了深刻印象。”

????SalesForce.com首席執(zhí)行官馬克?貝尼奧夫認(rèn)識休斯頓，他表示自己在關(guān)注該公司，并同意上述看法。貝尼奧夫表示：“我能上傳一個(gè)文件，然后在任何地方都能訪問它，這棒極了?！?/p>

????因此，雖然Dropbox缺少市場宣傳，而且還有許多同類型的公司在競爭，但它仍吸引到了數(shù)百萬忠實(shí)用戶。用戶使用Dropbox聯(lián)合創(chuàng)作書籍，甚至調(diào)配多臺自動(dòng)轉(zhuǎn)向農(nóng)用拖拉機(jī)。

????大衛(wèi)?戈德堡是眾多用戶中的一員，他是在線問卷調(diào)查公司Survey Monkey的首席執(zhí)行官，同時(shí)還是休斯頓的朋友。去年，休斯頓通過Dropbox分享了一些他們聚餐的照片，戈德堡因此迷上了Dropbox。如今，Survey Monkey利用Dropbox進(jìn)行文件分享，而戈德堡最近還將家人“發(fā)展”成了Dropbox的用戶。

????戈德堡表示：“這并不是個(gè)新概念，但如果你能在合適的時(shí)間、適當(dāng)?shù)牡攸c(diǎn)，用正確的團(tuán)隊(duì)制作出對的產(chǎn)品，那就能取得成功。我認(rèn)為這就是Dropbox取得成功的原因。雖然在Facebook之前，許多人就有過社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)的體驗(yàn)，但讓社交變得容易、快捷、純粹和簡潔，并且能基于用戶的需求繼續(xù)完善產(chǎn)品，這些同樣重要?！?/p>

????硅谷的業(yè)內(nèi)人士將Dropbox的成功主要?dú)w功于用戶的口耳相傳，以及它頗具吸引力的推薦計(jì)劃。Dropbox使用的是免費(fèi)增值商業(yè)模式：用戶可以免費(fèi)使用2G存儲空間（更大的存儲空間收費(fèi)最高達(dá)20美元/月），但如果用戶的任何朋友注冊了免費(fèi)或付費(fèi)的Dropbox賬號，那么推薦者和被薦者均能獲得額外的250MB存儲空間。此外，Dropbox還獲得了一些上佳的植入式廣告：它在蘋果（Apple）應(yīng)用程序商店（App Store）中被列為“特色應(yīng)用”。

????Dropbox獲得的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資很少，這令人頗為驚訝。四年前，Dropbox從保羅?格雷漢姆的Y Combinator獲得創(chuàng)業(yè)種子基金。它還從Sequoia Capital、Accel Partners等投資者手中獲得大約700萬美元投資，這和Groupon今年早些時(shí)候獲得的10億美元投資相比，簡直九牛一毛。不過，許多投資家都渴望投資Dropbox，其中包括羅恩?康威，他表示自己曾目睹硅谷大約70%新創(chuàng)公司的交易。

????Dropbox為什么這么火？因?yàn)镈ropbox運(yùn)營開支很小，只有大約45名雇員。據(jù)傳聞，它的年增長率超過10倍，而且現(xiàn)金流為正。知情人士稱Dropbox 2010年的營收已達(dá)到公司內(nèi)部的2011年銷售預(yù)測，貝尼奧夫也預(yù)測Dropbox今年的營收將達(dá)到1億美元（Dropbox拒絕對此置評）。其它人則認(rèn)為該公司也許已價(jià)值10億至20億美元，科技創(chuàng)業(yè)者普拉文?雅門就持有這種看法，他是休斯頓的朋友，并曾和休斯頓一同工作過。龐大的估值使Dropbox成為絕佳的收購對象，并能使投資者獲得豐厚的退出收益；Dropbox還可能成長為消費(fèi)級云領(lǐng)域一家主要的獨(dú)立公司。這誠然是好的信號，不過Dropbox似乎不太把自己當(dāng)回事。該公司的招聘頁面顯示的是隨機(jī)卡通圖片——手持AK-47的霸王龍騎在一只大白鯊上。

????顯然，收購談判有時(shí)與其說是一門科學(xué)，不如說是一門藝術(shù)，涉及到某家公司的估值時(shí)更是如此。谷歌（Google）和亞馬遜（Amazon）顯然不會袖手旁觀，前者通過Gmail提供在線存儲，后者有自己的亞馬遜網(wǎng)絡(luò)服務(wù)（Web Services），他們都可能強(qiáng)勢進(jìn)入Dropbox的領(lǐng)域。不過，各種跡象表明，Dropbox已獲得足夠的動(dòng)力和“逃逸速度”，將在云領(lǐng)域塵埃落定時(shí)勝出，成為少數(shù)真正的贏家之一。這才是正事，不管Dropbox網(wǎng)站上有沒有卡通霸王龍。

????譯者：項(xiàng)航

????The startup on every venture and angel investor's lips these days isn't a social media company or a site hawking coupons. No, the tech world is currently enamored with Dropbox, a four-year-old company that aims to bring cloud computing -- that catchall phrase corporations use to describe services delivered via the Internet -- to consumers and businesses.

????MIT graduate Drew Houston co-founded the startup in 2007, when he got tired of keeping track of his USB thumb drive. Without a quick and easy replacement, he did what any entrepreneur would do: created one himself.

????Dropbox lets users store digital files -- photos, personal documents, music -- in an electronic locker that the owner can access or share on nearly any Net-connected device. Its strength lies in its simplicity. Download the utility, create an account, and you're ready to go. Users put all their electronic files in a virtual folder -- the one that lives in the cloud -- where they can interact with the files via the Dropbox app or website as if they were in any regular computer folder, view photos in Gallery format, and share them with non-users.

????"They've said, 'Look, rather than try to do every folder on your machine, do it with one folder, and do a killer job at it," says Forrester analyst Frank Gillett. "That extreme focus has produced the 'Wow' factor to really impress people."

????SalesForce.com (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff, who knows Houston and says he follows the company, agrees. "I can take a file, access it anywhere, and it just works," he says.

????Which is why, despite scant marketing and loads of competition, the service has earned millions of devoted customers who use it for tasks like co-writing books or even coordinating multiple self-steering farm tractors.

????One of them is Dave Goldberg, CEO of the online questionnaire company Survey Monkey and a friend of Houston's. Last year, Houston shared photos of a dinner they had together via Dropbox, and Goldberg got hooked. Survey Monkey relies on Dropbox for file sharing, and Goldberg more recently converted his family to the service.

????"It's not a new concept, but sometimes you have the right team in the right place at the right time with the right product, and it just clicks," he says. "I kind of think that's what Dropbox is and has done. Lots of people have done social networking before Facebook, but making it easy, fast, clean and simple, and then iterating based on what consumers want is also important."

????Silicon Valley insiders attribute Dropbox's success mostly to word of mouth and an attractive referral program. The service uses a "freemium" model where the first two gigabytes of storage is free (more capacity costs up to $20 a month), but for every friend who signs up for a free or paid account, both the referral and the referrer get an additional 250 MB. Dropbox also earned some choice product placement: It's a featured app in the Apple App Store.

????Dropbox has also accepted surprisingly little venture funding. It received seed money from Paul Graham's Y Combinator four years ago and snagged about $7 million from Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and others -- a pittance compared with the nearly $1 billion raised by Groupon earlier this year. Meanwhile, investors like angel Ron Conway, who says he sees roughly 70% of all startup deals in the Valley, are dying to get in on a piece of the company.

????What gives? Thanks to a lean operation with some 45 employees, Dropbox reportedly experiences well over 10 times year-over-year growth and positive cash flow. Sources say its revenue met internal 2011 sales projections in 2010, and Benioff predicts sales could hit $100 million this year. (The company declined to comment.) Others, like tech entrepreneur Praveen Yajman, another friend and former coworker of Houston's, indicate the company may already be worth between $1 billion and $2 billion, making it ripe for acquisition and a healthy exit for investors, or setting it up to be a major independent player in the consumer cloud race. Good signs to be sure, and yet, the company doesn't appear to be taking itself too seriously. Case in point: Dropbox's jobs page has a random cartoon AK-47-wielding T-Rex riding a great white shark.

????Obviously such shop talk, particularly about a company's valuation, can sometimes be more art than science. And there's little to stop Google (GOOG), which offers online storage through Gmail, and Amazon (AMZN), with its own Amazon Web Services, from making a greater push into Dropbox's territory. But all signs point to the fact that the company has enough general support and escape velocity to become one of the few real winners in the cloud once the dust settles, which cartoon dinosaur or not, is some serious business.