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provide an extra layer of security. The move is meant to ease IT managers’ security concerns,
but will it be enough to earn the trust of enterprise customers, who have more to lose than their
smaller counterparts?

Dropbox Vice President for Enterprise Strategy Ross Piper confirmed that the company does
not take security as seriously as enterprises when he said in an interview with FierceEnterprise
Communications, “If you can get five times the number of users to use it, it’s OK to give up a
little bit of security control.”

I wonder how many CIOs and IT Directors at large enterprises share Mr. Piper’s view?

In an interview with TechCrunch, 451 Research analyst Alan Pelz-Sharpe sums up why
Dropbox’s strategy isn’t suitable for enterprises: “Dropbox has been so successful to date by
being end-user friendly and largely ignoring IT.” He added that Dropbox is going to have to find
a way to balance the needs of both, but that will be much easier in SMBs than in large
enterprises. “In the much bigger small and mid-sized business market,” he said, “it’s much
easier to meet their administrative and security requirements without compromising ease of use
– these buyers don’t typically have the complex integration, process or compliance
requirements that Fortune 1000 firms do.”

This statement can easily be applied across the board – all of the popular cloud-based file
sharing vendors offer intuitive user interfaces and experiences, but most are seriously lacking in
the security department. In order to be enterprise-ready, the two sides must be balanced out.

About the Author

Tom Scearce is a senior product marketing manager at Attachmate and
Novell, two leading providers of advanced software that helps make the
workplace more productive, secure and manageable. Over the span of his
career, Tom’s experience in marketing strategy, business development, sales
operations and program management has helped companies grow revenue,
predictably and profitably. Tom can be reached online on LinkedIn at
www.linkedin.com/in/tomscearce, on Twitter at @ TLOTL and at the
companies’ websites http://www.attachmate.com and https://www.novell.com.

6 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – December 2014 Edition
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