To be frank, it's really hard to believe that. They're being acquired, it isn't up to them anymore what happens to Mailbox. They signed the keys away to Drew Houston and the management team at Dropbox. Mailbox dies the moment Drew decides to kill it.
Every time someone here responds when their name is mentioned, I think of this scene from "Annie Hall":
Alvy Singer: [the man behind him in line is talking loudly] What I wouldn't give for a large sock with horse manure in it!
Alvy Singer: [to audience] Whaddya do when you get stuck in a movie line with a guy like this behind you?
Man in Theatre Line: Wait a minute, why can't I give my opinion? It's a free country!
Alvy Singer: He can give it... do you have to give it so loud? I mean, aren't you ashamed to pontificate like that? And the funny part of it is, Marshall
McLuhan, you don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan!
Man in Theatre Line: Oh, really? Well, it just so happens I teach a class at Columbia called "TV, Media and Culture." So I think my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity!
Alvy Singer: Oh, do ya? Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here, so, so, yeah, just let me...
[pulls McLuhan out from behind a nearby poster]
Alvy Singer: come over here for a second... tell him!
Marshall McLuhan: I heard what you were saying! You know nothing of my work! You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing!
This is what is said LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TIME a company is acquired -- right along with "nothing is changing" and we'll "continue to operate with the vision that made us attractive to $acquirer in the first place"
Without a more clear rationale for why things won't change, it's pretty reasonable to assume that the product is at risk no matter what you say. The fact is, almost regardless of your intentions, your organization is going to put its thumbprint on the product.
What that means is unclear to external customers, and is also often unclear internally. If you do know what your plans are for it internally, you're still probably not going to say (though I'd love to be wrong).
Are you sure you're being LITERAL? I certainly remember some google acquisitions where it was stated straight up that the product would be discontinued in the initial press release.
It's not actually the case that every single acquisition in the world involves public platitudes about the continuance of management, the product, culture, office location, or lunch room perks.
Here's my chief gripe with using hyperbole and "literally" - If the word "literally" can be used non-literally, in a hyperbole or a metaphor, then it stops serving its purpose of marking a sentence as being literal. Then, when a sentence permits metaphoric and literal interpretations and you stick "literally" in it, nothing changes - it can still be either metaphoric or literal. The only solution I see is using "really literally" to mean that your sentence isn't metaphoric. Until people start using "really literally" in a metaphoric way. I virtually really literally actually in fact don't want to see that happen.
Merriam Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary already accept the use of "literally" to mean "virtually" in informal contexts. It's a losing battle.
Now if you were to acquire 49% of Mailbox, I might believe that. But you must understand our doubts -- it feels like every single time a giant company acquires a useful little startup, the users eventually (and often sooner than later) get burned by it.
I'm open to your Mailbox acquisition being the exception to this trend, but I hope you understand my healthy skepticism.
That doesn't really strike me as relevant? Many "businesses" are one or two people. Obviously "giant" is subjective but considering the largest companies are a few orders of magnitude bigger, I maintain what I said earlier: Only people who are immersed in the startup world consider Dropbox a "giant" company.
Just to add some objectivity to the debate, in France, between 250 and 4999 employees a company is considered to be an "intermediate size company" (as long as the revenue is below 1.5 G€).
I don't know the American standard, but I'd be surprised if it isn't similar.
