Since that posting, Xobni invited me to this year's Sales 2.0 this past March in San Francisco where I was finally able to put names to faces: Eric Grafstrom: VP of Business Development and Matt Brenzina: Co-Founder, who happens to be a healthy 6 feet 3 inches tall!!! (Of course I could actually see their faces through the Xobni/Facebook integration but meeting them in person was great.)
The exciting news is that Xobni is releasing their latest version (v1.7) and removing the "beta" label! As any good company, Xobni has done a great job listening to end user requests, taking notes on feedback to ensure that the Xobni experience is super easy, fast, efficient and highly productive. The latest release focuses on SPEED and PERFORMANCE.
As much as I love Xobni, I did find that the startup time in Outlook took some time. The newest version dramatically reduces this startup time and loads much faster in Outlook. Other areas that were upgraded:
- Faster Message Loading: Xobni profile data is now cached, reducing delays between loading messages.
- Indexing Controls: users can now control how often and how much of their email is indexed.
- Sidebar Controls: users can now choose for Xobni to open automatically with Outlook or only open when they need it.
- Reduced Outlook Startup Time: as mentioned above.
The new version can be downloaded tonight after 9pm Pacific Time at www.xobni.com
On a side note, Eric Grafstrom also told me that Xobni has secured Round B funding from Blackberry Partners Fund, which focuses its investment in the mobile industry. If you are in the tech industry, you have heard of Blackberry Partners Fund, Blackberries and Research in Motion. (Could there be a mobile version of Xobni? I'll have to ask Eric and Matt but makes sense if I can access my Outlook from my Blackberry device why couldn't I access Xobni also?)
The Round B of funding only means even better things to come from this awesome email management application. Just when I thought it couldn't get better, Xobni gets more funding, which now means even the best can get better.
(Author is not affiliated with Xobni and was not financially compensated for this blog.)
