It's funny, I was reading old Joel on Software posts the other night and stumbled across this one:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.htmlFrom the essay:
"The hallmark of an architecture astronaut is that they don't solve an actual problem ... they solve something that appears to be the template of a lot of problems. Or at least, they try. Since 1988 many prominent architecture astronauts have been convinced that the biggest problem to solve is synchronization.
...
Jeez, we've had that forever. When did the first sync web sites start coming out? 1999? There were a million versions. xdrive, mydrive, idrive, youdrive, wealldrive for ice cream. Nobody cared then and nobody cares now, because synchronizing files is just not a killer application. I'm sorry. It seems like it should be. But it's not."
I immediately thought of dropbox. It appears, to some degree, it is a problem and some people do care. Like Chris said, its the execution and people that made the difference.
From the essay:
"The hallmark of an architecture astronaut is that they don't solve an actual problem ... they solve something that appears to be the template of a lot of problems. Or at least, they try. Since 1988 many prominent architecture astronauts have been convinced that the biggest problem to solve is synchronization.
...
Jeez, we've had that forever. When did the first sync web sites start coming out? 1999? There were a million versions. xdrive, mydrive, idrive, youdrive, wealldrive for ice cream. Nobody cared then and nobody cares now, because synchronizing files is just not a killer application. I'm sorry. It seems like it should be. But it's not."
I immediately thought of dropbox. It appears, to some degree, it is a problem and some people do care. Like Chris said, its the execution and people that made the difference.