>And if there is one thing we've learned from Microsoft etc. is that throwing unlimited funding at a problem fixes it.
The main problem for Dropbox is simply scale. You, as a service provider, need to keep up with the storage and bandwidth requirements. The only way to deal with that is through buying more hardware/Cloud CPU time and bandwidth. If you're Dropbox, that means that you might need to get more funding. If you're IBM or HP, and they've made it a priority, it's much easier to get what you need.
Dropbox isn't really all that special from a technical perspective at this point. Any of the large tech firms can solve it easily, and Apple, Amazon and Google have all come out with services that do basically the same thing as Dropbox.
The main problem for Dropbox is simply scale. You, as a service provider, need to keep up with the storage and bandwidth requirements. The only way to deal with that is through buying more hardware/Cloud CPU time and bandwidth. If you're Dropbox, that means that you might need to get more funding. If you're IBM or HP, and they've made it a priority, it's much easier to get what you need.
Dropbox isn't really all that special from a technical perspective at this point. Any of the large tech firms can solve it easily, and Apple, Amazon and Google have all come out with services that do basically the same thing as Dropbox.