Dropbox is holding a big event this week to prove critics wrong about its $10 billion business

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Dropbox CEO Drew Houston at the 2014 Web Summit

Tristan Fewings/Getty Images

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston

Dropbox has been hammered by the press and critics questioning the health of its business, which was last valued at $10 billion.

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But Dropbox will get a chance to prove them wrong this Wednesday with its first ever user-conference called Dropbox Open.

Dropbox Open is a one-day, invite-only event that will have a bunch of business customers, analysts, and press members mingle at the same place, much like the way Salesforce's Dreamforce or Box's BoxWorks is organized.

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It also features some high-profile keynote speakers including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, HP Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, and Apple SVP Eddie Cue, among others.

But perhaps the biggest significance of Dropbox Open is that that Dropbox now has enough business customers to host a customer event, something almost every big enterprise software company does once they reach a certain scale.

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Dropbox describes the event as, "an invite-only event celebrating our business customers and the future of work."

Dropbox launched Dropbox for Business, an enterprise version of its product targeting business customers, about two years ago, and has touted it as its next big growth engine. With the cost of file storage in decline, Dropbox needs its business product to drive more sales, but recent reports suggested that it's struggling to gain much traction.

Dropbox will probably use the event as a chance to reveal new product features and updates to its overall business. Dropbox CEO Drew Houston will kick off the event with a special keynote that it describes as having "special guests" as well.

Dropbox used to have its own developer's conference called DBX, but it shuttered for unknown reasons after 2014. Cancelling a developer's conference is often a sign that the company's having cash problems, but Dropbox seems to be countering those claims with its own user conference, which is another high-cost marketing event.

Since its founding in 2007, Dropbox has become one of the most popular cloud file sharing services, raising more than $1.1 billion in funding. But there have been multiple press reports questioning the company's shaky business model in recent months, and investors reportedly cutting the value of its shares by 24%.

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Business Insider reached out to Dropbox for comment and will update this post when we hear back.

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