????許多硅谷人都知道，只有極少數(shù)新創(chuàng)企業(yè)能取得成功。而且即便真的成功了，也只有很少的企業(yè)能在如此短的時間里，達(dá)到Dropbox那樣的增長。從2010年1月開始，由首席執(zhí)行官杜魯?休斯頓和首席技術(shù)官阿拉什?費(fèi)得沃斯領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的文件同步與分享公司Dropbox發(fā)展迅猛，雖然在廣告上的投入為零，但該公司的用戶從400萬增長至2500萬人，日文件存儲量達(dá)到2億之多。休斯頓表示，這完全得益于口耳相傳：30%的新注冊用戶來自Dropbox的用戶推薦計劃，每一次成功的推薦，可以為推薦人帶來250MB免費(fèi)的額外存儲空間；還有20%的用戶是被Dropbox便捷的文件分享功能吸引來的。另外，雖然Dropbox的重心在個人用戶，但仍吸引到成百上千家企業(yè)用戶，其中包括美聯(lián)航（United Airlines）、紅牛（Red Bull）和Tishman Construction，后者是紐約市新的世貿(mào)中心一期（One World Trade Center）的建筑監(jiān)理商。

????上周，休斯頓來到《財富》（Fortune）的辦公室，與我們探討了Dropbox的發(fā)展方向。概述如下：

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????像Dropbox這樣的新創(chuàng)公司，增長速度很快并且擁有大量極度忠實的用戶，就應(yīng)該志存高遠(yuǎn)。這無疑是首席執(zhí)行官杜魯?休斯頓目前的想法。他正在探索如何把這家4歲的文件同步及分享新創(chuàng)企業(yè)帶向主流市場。

????雖然一些熱衷于技術(shù)的《財富》讀者表示沒人不知道Dropbox，但說不定有些讀者還不太了解，所以我還是簡要介紹一下。休斯頓畢業(yè)于麻省理工學(xué)院，2007年，在Y Combinator基金的資助下，他和同學(xué)阿拉什?費(fèi)得沃斯一道創(chuàng)立了Dropbox。用戶能將照片、個人文檔、音樂等數(shù)碼文件存儲在Dropbox的“電子保險箱內(nèi)”，并能用任何聯(lián)網(wǎng)設(shè)備訪問和分享它們。使用Dropbox非常簡單：下載工具、創(chuàng)建賬號和文件夾，然后開始使用。

????Dropbox并不是第一個提供此類服務(wù)的公司，PogoPlug和SugarSync等公司都向個人用戶提供類似服務(wù)，不過許多硅谷人以及越來越多的硅谷以外的人似乎對Dropbox情有獨鐘。該公司表示超過80%的《財富》美國100強(qiáng)公司在正式或非正式地使用其服務(wù)。

????Dropbox的快速發(fā)展和聲名遠(yuǎn)播讓休斯頓本人都感到吃驚。Dropbox有超過45名員工，這些人經(jīng)常能聽到關(guān)于Dropbox如何提高人們生活質(zhì)量，以及幫助他們解決某些難題的故事。

????休斯頓很喜歡提到來自于一位天文學(xué)家的一個故事。最開始這位天文學(xué)家的團(tuán)隊每天要花費(fèi)3小時，將來自于望遠(yuǎn)鏡的圖片在芬蘭、波士頓和新墨西哥州之間相互傳送，而現(xiàn)在他們使用Dropbox保存并隨時同步這些望遠(yuǎn)鏡圖片。

????休斯頓表示：“Dropbox讓他們從早上9點開始工作，而不用晚上12點開始?！?/p>

????Dropbox獲得了很多類似好評，休斯頓因此開始考察如何將Dropbox整合到更多的產(chǎn)品里去。

????休斯頓表示：“2007年，iPhone和iPad還未誕生，但如今，大家都在使用手機(jī)拍照，都在將各種數(shù)據(jù)上傳到iPad和Facebook上去。明天，就將是電視機(jī)、攝像頭和汽車。未來幾年，將會涌現(xiàn)出無數(shù)聯(lián)網(wǎng)設(shè)備?！?/p>

????休斯頓認(rèn)為數(shù)據(jù)存儲將發(fā)生根本性變革，而且現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)開始，我們的設(shè)備都開始無縫連接到云網(wǎng)絡(luò)里。（看看谷歌即將推出的Chrome操作系統(tǒng)筆記本，以及蘋果那時尚有余，但存儲空間不夠的MacBook就知道了。）Dropbox提供了便捷的文件同步和云數(shù)據(jù)存儲功能，能將你所有的設(shè)備與互聯(lián)網(wǎng)服務(wù)連為一體，不管它們是在網(wǎng)上還是在你的臥室、口袋或是汽車?yán)铩?/p>

????休斯頓說：“我們所創(chuàng)建的服務(wù)能取代硬件存儲裝置。想想未來的情形吧。你可能有20TB（兆兆字節(jié)）的數(shù)據(jù)要處理，不過你僅僅只有200G（千兆字節(jié)）的固態(tài)硬盤（SSD，solid state disk drive）。我們能解決這類問題。我們能解除幾十億人在使用計算機(jī)時面對的基礎(chǔ)性硬件設(shè)備限制，幫助他們處理越來越復(fù)雜的數(shù)據(jù)，讓他們的煩惱一掃而空。

????休斯頓及其團(tuán)隊還在考察互聯(lián)網(wǎng)服務(wù)的整合：將Dropbox按鈕整合到第三方服務(wù)中，例如快門網(wǎng)（Shutterfly）這種適合社交分享的照片發(fā)布網(wǎng)站。理論上講，點擊Dropbox按鈕能讓用戶快速地將照片存儲在自己的賬號里，這將節(jié)約他們上傳的時間。如果能實現(xiàn)這個級別的協(xié)同，那意味著Dropbox將成為真正的服務(wù)平臺。

????為了實現(xiàn)這個目標(biāo)，Dropbox計劃在今年將團(tuán)隊擴(kuò)充一倍。雖然休斯頓并沒有太多表示，但他暗示更多的風(fēng)險投資是必不可少的。（他表示：“我們正在替換成千上萬的硬盤，而替換這類設(shè)備需要資金。”）

????Dropbox野心勃勃？確實是。不過，任何企業(yè)家都會告訴你，弄明白如何利用Dropbox這樣的成功，這樣的“問題”可謂求之不得。

????譯者：項航

????As many in Silicon Valley know, very few start-ups succeed, and even if they do, even fewer stumble upon the kind of growth Dropbox has in such little time. But since January 2010, CEO Drew Houston and CTO Arash Ferdowsi's file-syncing and sharing service has exploded, from 4 million to 25 million, with 200 million files now saved daily, despite having spent zero dollars on advertising. According to Houston, it's all thanks to word of mouth: 30% of new sign-ups now come via its user referral program, where users get a free, additional 250 MB for each successful referral, while 20% are due to its easy file-sharing features. And despite Dropbox's focus on consumers, it counts hundreds of thousands of businesses among its userbase now, including United Airlines (UAUA), Red Bull, and Tishman Construction, the construction manager for One World Trade Center in New York City.

????Houston dropped by the Fortune offices last week to discuss where his company is headed. Here's a recap:

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????When you're a start-up like Dropbox with rapid growth and fiercely loyal userbase, it's all right to think big. Certainly that's how CEO Drew Houston is thinking now, as he figures out how to take the four-year-old file-syncing and sharing start-up mainstream.

????In case you're not already familiar with Dropbox -- and as more tech-savvy Fortune readers pointed out after our recent story, who isn't? -- here's a quick refresher. Houston, an MIT grad, co-founded the Y Combinator start-up in 2007 with fellow student Arash Ferdowsi, with the goal of letting users store digital files -- photos, personal documents, music -- in an electronic locker accessible and shareable over any Internet-connected device. The key was keeping things simple: download the utility, create an account and folder, and go.

????Dropbox isn't the first product of its kind, and there's no shortage of consumer-facing contenders like PogoPlug and the SugarSync, but it's a service that many in -- and increasingly outside -- Silicon Valley seem to swear by. Meanwhile, the company claims more than 80% of Fortune 100 companies use Dropbox, either officially or, ahem, not.

????For Houston, who visited Fortune last week, its rapid growth and buzz-worthiness surprises even him. The 45-plus team regularly hears tales of how Dropbox improved their lives or saved them in particular instances.

????Houston likes to bring up one story from an astronomer. Instead of having to spend three hours each morning transferring images from the telescope to staffers among Finland, Boston and New Mexico, his team of star watchers use Dropbox to keep large photo images from their telescope synced among locations at all times.

????"For them, Dropbox is the difference between starting work at 9 AM versus 12 PM," Houston says.

????With testimonials like that in tow, he's looking into how to integrate Dropbox into more products.

????"In 2007, there was no iPhone, no iPad, but now today, normal people are taking pictures with their phone and putting things on their iPads or on their Facebook," he says. "Tomorrow, it's going to be your TV, and your camera and your car. There's just going to be billions of things with on-switches coming out over the next several years that are going to be shipping over the next several years."

????Houston envisions a fundamental shift, one that's starting to happen already, where all your devices are seamlessly connected portals to content in the cloud. (One need look no further than Google's (GOOG) upcoming Chrome OS notebooks or Apple's (AAPL) snazzy, but storage-poor MacBook Air for evidence of what's coming down the pike.) So the Dropbox of today, a simple file-syncing and cloud data repository -- becomes a service that links all your devices and web services together, whether they're on the Web, in your living room, your pocket, or driveway.

????"The kinds of things we're building are going to make the hard drive go away," says Houston. Thinking way down the road, he continues, "you might have 20 terabytes of stuff, but it'll be OK that you [only] have a 200 gigabyte SSD [solid state disk drive]. We'll just make it work. It's eliminating those basic limitations and frustrations that a couple billion people have with using their computers and helping people cope with the increasing complexity of these things, that silent kind of pain point."

????Houston and crew are also looking into web services integration: a Dropbox button integrated into third-party services like social sharing-friendly photo publishing tool Shutterfly. Clicking the Dropbox button would in theory quickly allow the user to access photos stored in their accounts and cut down on unnecessary upload times. Mastering that level of synergy is when the company believes it'll become a true platform.

????To achieve that, Dropbox plans to double its staff this year, and though Houston won't say as much, he implies that more funding from venture capitalists is inevitable. ("We're basically replacing tens of millions of hard drives and replacing that kind of infrastructure will require capital," he concedes.)

????Ambitious? Sure. But as any entrepreneur will tell you, figuring out how to capitalize on success like Dropbox's is the best kind of problem to have.