A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

Dropbox Webhooks and Cloud PDM Pivoting

Dropbox Webhooks and Cloud PDM Pivoting
Oleg
Oleg
27 May, 2014 | 2 min for reading

cloud-pdm-pivoting

Regardless on what CAD and PDM vendors want, engineers are going to share files on Dropbox and similar file sharing services (Google Drive, One Drive, etc.)  Do you remember my PLM cloud concerns and Dropbox reality for engineers  post two years ago? 34% of people in engineering departments are using Dropbox to share data. I don’t know what is the number now, but my hunch – it is not going down.

I’ve been reading about interesting functionality added to Dropbox- Webhooks. Navigate to the following Computerworld article to read more – Dropbox plays more nicely with Web apps. The following passage explains what service does:

Web developers can now configure apps to be notified immediately of changes that users make to their Dropbox files, taking some strain off Web servers and potentially giving end users a better experience. The functionality comes via a new “webhooks” API (application programming interface) for Dropbox, which lets developers set up real-time notifications for their Web apps whenever users modify a Dropbox file.

More explanations can be found in Dropbox blog – Announcing Dropbox webhooks:

In general, a webhook is a way for an app developer to specify a URI to receive notifications based on some trigger. In the case of Dropbox, notifications get sent to your webhook URI every time a user of your app makes a file change. The payload of the webhook is a list of user IDs who have changes. Your app can then use the standard delta method to see what changed and respond accordingly.

You can ask me how is that related to cloud PDM? Good question. In my view, this particular piece of Dropbox technology can simplify development of any cloud PDM system. Dropbox developed reference application in the tutorial. Another product referenced in the announcement is Picturelife. Simplify – doesn’t mean cloud PDM will ultimately relies on Dropbox. Many companies don’t want to put their data on Dropbox. Maybe your remember my blog post – How to evaluate PDM before it will ruin your personal productivity? Here is the thing – for most of cloud PDM developers, user experience is the biggest issue. Dropbox is an ideal environment to kick off your cloud PDM development experiments. The majority of companies that not using PDM these days are using Dropbox. For these users cloud PDM on top of Dropbox can be “no brainier”. Later on, additional infrastructure can be build and used.

What is my conclusion? To get user traction is priceless. It requires lots of UX pivoting. To find right experience is one of the most critical first steps. Future technologies can be improved and fixed. There are many open web infrastructure these days that can be used to build enterprise products (including PDM). Startup companies can pivot and experiment with user experience with Dropbox based cloud PDM… Actually, established vendors can do the same. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

picture credit http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
18 August, 2020

Cloud and SaaS are changing PLM software. The new technology makes SaaS PLM easily accessible and available instantly to customers....

29 April, 2021

Unless you lived under the rock for the last few years, you’ve heard about SaaS. The new modern word SaaS...

23 July, 2010

The acceptance of Open Source technologies is growing. One of the latest examples of products in open source movement that...

30 March, 2015

Cloud is transforming businesses and technologies. CAD and PDM are going to be transformed too. If you had a chance...

14 May, 2010

I think cloud / SaaS option for PLM can become a reality earlier than expected. Listening to customers, vendors as...

26 March, 2014

Collaboration is inspiring. It is very overloaded word in engineering space. Collaboration is often used in the context of CAD,...

19 November, 2010

I want to learn more about Microsoft’s strategies these days. The “big PC” is preparing to become the biggest supplier...

15 November, 2019

I’ve been busy earlier this week attending PI PLMx 2019 event in San-Diego. With my double duties following PLM presentations...

13 January, 2016

Back to New Year celebration, I bought the iTwinkle Light made by GE in Home Depot. It has many features, connects...

Blogroll

To the top