Dropbox and Evernote: Two cloud pioneers waiting to be bought

The cloud revolution is very much being televised and we the consumers have a ringside view of all the action. I am calling it now- Evernote and Dropbox, two incredibly valuable and still private startups based out of the Silicon Valley will be part of a heated acquisition battle sooner than later. The battle will include one or more of Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. Here is why.Why Dropbox?Dropbox in its simplest form is a cloud storage service. It has over 50 million users and is growing rapidly. Its two main calling cards are its simplicity and ubiquity. Before Dropbox arrived on the scene, cloud storage was either too expensive or complicated. Dropbox made it free (for a basic 250 MB) and incredibly easy to sign up and use. It has grown to develop partnerships with mobile manufacturers like HTC to allow people to automatically store their smartphone pictures on the cloud and to make its product more accesible. Story has it that the late Steve Jobs tried to buy Dropbox to jumpstart Apple's iCloud service but founder Drew Houston politely declined.Why Evernote?Evernote started off four years ago as a simple note taking app and has since grown to be the best cross platform note taking app and one that has spawned offshoots like Evernote Hello, Skitch and Evernote Food. Very much like Dropbox, Evernote excels because of its simplicity and ubiquity across platforms and types of devices. And they continue to enhance their products as none other.The PlayersThe Cloudization of every element and aspect of enterprise and consumer information technology services is currently underway. There are currently multiple players in this space each excelling in one area and competing hard in the rest. Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook are all in the space for different reasons but they are starting to find the competition fierce and unrelenting. Under these circumstances, a new killer acquisition of an established service with a good user base is highly coveted. Hence the big deal about Evernote and Dropbox. Apple is still very much a hardware company with software that makes it simple and easy for the user. It is looking to complement its core iOS and MacOS experience with services that are centered around its new cloud offering, iCloud. Dropbox and Evernote would be a welcome addition to Apple's iOS and MacOS.Microsoft was admittedly late to the cloud game. For a company that derived much of its income selling server software and office productivity tools, the move to cloud was late. But given the size and sheer might of Microsoft, they have been rapidly adding solutions to their portfolio (including the significant move to cloud driven subscription based Office). With Azure, Skydrive, Live365 and now Office on the cloud, Microsoft is pushing to capture the attention of recent Google Docs converts. Microsoft also has the OneNote notes taking app that hasnt quite captured everyone's imagination. Evernote would change that in a blink while Dropbox would make Skydrive robust and omnipresent.Facebook is a relative outsider to the game but surprisingly Dropbox would be a cool addition for a company that would like you to be engaged more and more in its ecosystem.Google is the most established player in the list. They offered much of their services on the cloud before cloud was cool. Their Google Docs has been slowly but steadily chipping away at the Microsoft Office marketshare and its new Google Drive cloud storage system is a serious competitor to Dropbox. Dropbox would make their cloud storage offering so much bigger than every one else. And Evernote would be a nice addition to their portfolio of cloud based productivity offerings. Arguably, they stand to gain the most by acquiring one or both of them- in one fell swoop they would eliminate a big competitor and advance their offerings. Going AloneLest anyone misunderstand my post, I think both companies are doing more than admirably by themselves. They will continue to thrive as independent companies and maybe grow to be something much bigger than what they are. It also benefits the consumer as they will continue to show interest and bring their products to all platforms and all forms of devices. But if the big boys are looking for a real value acquisition target to bolster their cloud story, it doesnt get any better than Dropbox and Evernote. Disclosure: Due to conflicts of interest, I do not write about Amazon.com in my posts.