Last I just checked they tried to crawl out of their “it’s all about files. Simple!”-niche and become a fully web-based project management, chat, collaboration, office-thingie with links to GSuite and Office365.
As a long-time user it was quite incomprehensible, and definitely nothing I appreciated or felt added value to my Dropbox. On the contrary, I was annoyed by all the product-nagging about these features I didn’t want.
Combine that with them obsoleting long-established features in their desktop sync-software which made them the only universal file-sync solution across all platforms, the reason I chose Dropbox over competing offers.
Do all that, and you lost people like me as a user. I’m on Nextcloud now and not coming back.
I really don’t think they have worked out their survival plan yet. Trying to outcompete MS and Google on their own turf is obviously not a fight they’re going to win.
Dropbox in the current state can become a target for activist investors like Elliot. The high percent R&D expenses make them more attractive because there is more to cut.
Joking aside...
> They were able to reduce the expenses in the last 2 years
That sounds pretty good to me! Reduce expenses but revenue is growing and revenue per user is growing. So they make more money without growing costs. That's great. With the layoffs that ratio would even improve.
Cost Of Revenues: $413.7M (22%) in software companies this includes Operations and customer care. There are spending as much as video sharing sites or video conferencing app.
R&D Expenses: $727.8M (39%). This is an insanely high number for a company that is not a startup. The average for bigger companies is below 20%.
If their growth doesn't recover, which will be difficult, they are going to be a prime target for acquisition from Private equity. PE will slash the expenses significantly and run them for a profit for 5-10 years.
[1] https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/DBX/income-statement