Xobni is a name you may, or may not of heard before. This startup company has only been around for 2 years, but has already attracted the interests of Microsoft.
Their first product is a plug-in for Outlook that helps you organise your inbox. It does this by extracting information about the different people you know from the e-mails you have received from them, and forms a profile for each one. It then uses this profile to see how the different people you know are linked together. It also groups information within a profile taken from your inbox messages and associated with that person e.g. Conversations and attachments. The idea being to make it much easier to find information relating to different people and how those people are linked.
Microsoft was so impressed with Xobni they decided to buy them for around US$20 million. This was significant because Xobni had so far managed just US$5 million in funding and were still relatively young as a company.
A letter of intent was recently signed by Xobni stating they were happy to be acquired and negotiations began. A few weeks later and Xobni have decided the Microsoft deal is no longer something they want to pursue and have pulled out.
The reasons behind this change of mind have been put down to uncertainties with what would happen to the Xobni technology. Microsoft was not answering the company’s questions clearly and wanted the staff to all move to Redmond. Fearing Xobni may just become another Outlook feature they decided to step away and remain independent.
Xobni is now expected to expand the mail services it supports.
Read more at TechCrunch.com
Matthew’s Opinion
You have to respect the staff at Xobni for taking the bold decision to say no when they felt the project would be in jeopardy. Turning down US$20 million would be hard for most companies, let alone a 2-year old startup.
By deciding to remain independent they now have room for fast growth and adding support for all the major e-mail services. They will also get a lot of respect from users for turning down Microsoft, which will be seen as caring for the product more than the money it could generate. Any company that does that deserves respect and their product is likely better because of it.
It will be interesting to see how Xobni fare in the coming months and whether another bid will be put in for them. There’s nothing to say a company like Google or Yahoo wouldn’t be interested and offer them a little more freedom.
Tags: digital, gadgets, amps, consumer technology