FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

[rabarberski]

To me the buy-back is a good indicator of the commitment of Fastmail and Fastmail's staff. So, very good news IMO !

(I am cautious regarding the planned new features such as Calendar, contact sync, etc. as they've been planned already for a looong time. But, hey, who knows, maybe this time we might actually get them in some near future !)

[astrodog73]

Yes!
Excellent news...

[DumbGuy]

Originally Posted by rabarberski

To me the buy-back is a good indicator of the commitment of Fastmail and Fastmail's staff. So, very good news IMO !

I agree. Good stuff happenin' here!

And interesting timing too, as I've been considering soon buying another 5-year block of account renewal.

...Oh, and that suggestion earlier about a daily notice of non-interference by NSA court order does actually sound like a clever idea.

[rabarberski]

Originally Posted by DumbGuy

...Oh, and that suggestion earlier about a daily notice of non-interference by NSA court order does actually sound like a clever idea.

See here for more background on the "dead man's switch for NSA':
http://boingboing.net/2013/09/16/how...otage-use.html

[petergh]

Originally Posted by William9

I would like to see more of your resources devoted to customer service/support. I was so glad several years ago when you finally put a ticket system in place for support requests. It seems to me that you have been trying to provide customer service on a shoe string. Consider having a tiered pricing structure charging more for those that want really excellent, responsive support.

I will have to agree with William9 on this point. Personally, I will not consider using FM for business purposes until I have a phone number to call in case of emergency, or know there is rapid email support available. I'd be more than willing to pay a premium for it, too.

[Terry]

Wow what can I say it's made my year..

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by FredOnline

Just logged in to myopera account, now showing 3000 MB storage - must have upped since last week for me.

Another reason to find out what will be happening with the myopera accounts.

Every year 1 GB is added to your myopera account. It was somewhere mentioned in a blog or forum on myopera.com some time ago. It has nothing to do with the current purchase.

[BritTim]

Positive:

In the immediate term, the FM staff should be extremely motivated and less likely to move to other jobs. This translates directly into reduced risk to stability, and greater confidence that developments will be completed.

Strategic direction will be focused on what is best for FM in isolation, without corporate goals potentially distorting the decision making process. Further, it should be possible to change direction, if this should be necessary, more quickly.

Concern:

There will be less financial muscle behind the business (especially if, as I think is nearly certain, Jeremy Howard is not part of this). There is no transparency as to FM's revenues, cost structure, account growth (or contraction).and other relevant information. Under Opera, there was almost no risk of the business folding without prior notice. Now, it is difficult to assess how real that risk could be.

Any financial offer for the business could be attractive to the FM staff, and we could find our data quickly and without notice in the hands of an organisation we do not trust.

[ioneja]

This is great news! Congrats to all involved! I'll continue to support you by recommending you to friends/colleagues and with several paid accounts of my own for my family and business!

The chances for FastMail to survive just went up considerably. When you have employees who have a real, financial stake in the company -- especially as "co-owners" -- then the performance of everyone goes up. I hope for your success!

Just a handful of humble requests and thoughts from a paying FastMail customer who wants to see you continue to be successful. Consider this an open letter about my wishes for FastMail:

1) I second the calls for better customer support. While FastMail customer support isn't terrible, it could definitely stand to use an upgrade of response time. Most people are probably fine with it as-is, but I really believe you need another "level" of higher service available for those who want it. There are several ways to do this, obviously. One way with is to allow us to pay for PREMIUM support. So please consider adding a premium support option to any account level.

Some of us are willing to pay for it. If premium support is not easy to set up as a separate add-on, then please add a new account type to each of your categories (a new tier each for Personal, Family, and Business) -- for example, a higher-priced option that includes *guaranteed* highest-priority, premium response time. So much so, that you're willing to advertise it as guaranteed, premium support on your website.

I would instantly opt for premium support or an upgraded *guaranteed* premium account on at least two of my accounts I pay for. I'm sure there are plenty of personal, family, and especially business users like me who would want something better and would pay for it.

2) Please finish CardDAV and CalDAV support! I know you're working on it, but I'm sending another confirmation that some users really want this, badly. I'm using third-party services for those services right now, and this would really complete the core package, and definitely increase your competitiveness with the "big" providers.

3) Security, security, privacy, privacy. Please place even more focus and attention to this. There are several things you can do in this regard -- a) assure us of steps you're taking in light of what's going on in the US and around the world regarding these issues, b) increase your transparency with regular reports and updates, and c) also please consider setting up optional servers in a country/jurisdiction that has better protections/laws than the US. And I'm saying that as a US citizen.

I'm the type of customer that would either move my accounts to, or open an additional account in a superior jurisdiction, if that were available to me. I can't be alone in this issue.

Also, consider the fact that you have some real marketing opportunities with this issue. While most Americans aren't going to do much about the situation over here (sadly), for example, I know there are a growing number of people here that are very discontented with other email options, and are looking for services that will meet their privacy and security preferences. You have a chance to capitalize on that, even if it is initially just increased transparency.

4) Please continue the positive development of new features, but don't forget the power users! I know a lot of your time has been spent on working on the new web interface, mobile interface, etc., but please don't forget the power users out there -- a lot of us are here for the powerful and flexible features under the hood.

5) Please don't sell out to a big company again. If you MUST sell to a big company again, please, please, please don't chose a company with a lousy track record of privacy! There were rumors a while back about Facebook, for example... and yes, I know those were just rumors... but please do NOT even remotely consider something like that. If you must sell to another company, please just pick one that is a specialist in privacy and security.

6) Please continue to integrate external file sharing services like Dropbox. That's a great start, but there are other services out there! And don't forget you've got your own file system that can be enhanced with more features and easier sharing, etc... for example... it would be nice to have a way to automatically SHARE a link from FastMail's own storage -- not just attach the file, but automatically trigger sharing to be set up for that file, if it's too large to be emailed.

7) Don't be afraid to do some marketing every once in a while! You guys are programmers, I know, but you can still spend some more resources on marketing here and there. You can start by incentivizing your current customers with promoting your referral options, or by sweetening the deal in other ways to get your current customers to promote you. I know you aren't following the "freemium" model, but there are some good lessons to be learned about how to motivate your customers from companies like Dropbox. Bonus extra storage goes a long way....

8) Please continue to stay engaged with your users! I really appreciate all your hard work, and I know you must truly have a passion for your business -- it would have been easy to throw in the towel and give up during tough times -- but you stuck with it and made a really good product, and now you own the business again. That says a lot. Please stay engaged with us and keep feeding your passion!


My two (make that three) bits.

[ioneja]

@BritTim - great points. I do wonder if Jeremy is still involved. It looks like he's very involved with kaggle.com though... perhaps since 2011? I'm guessing he left after the Opera acquisition? No confirmation of that though.

Re: your concerns about FastMail selling to another company that might not have our best interests at heart -- I wonder if there's really any difference in risk, though. Opera could have sold off FastMail just as quickly as FastMail employees reacquired FastMail for themselves. I think we're pretty fortunate, actually.

A sell-off could happen to any company, at any time. While I agree that FastMail won't have the benefit of the financial backing of a larger company now, there are plenty of examples of larger companies letting smaller acquisitions rot on the vine, or they raid them for IP, or mishandle them badly. Opera did okay, it seems, but you and I both can give many examples of little companies like FastMail that didn't do so well after being acquired by larger companies. At least FastMail's owners actually work there now and have a more direct, vested interest.

Time will tell, but for now, I'm very enthused by this development. I think it suggests more long-term stability than not.

[FredOnline]

Originally Posted by Berenburger

Every year 1 GB is added to your myopera account. It was somewhere mentioned in a blog or forum on myopera.com some time ago. It has nothing to do with the current purchase.

Never thought that for a moment, but thanks for pointing out the 1GB account anniversary addition to others not aware of that fact.

[chrisjj]

Hooray! Well Done Rob and everyone else at Fastmail.

[PON]

A very timely development!

I had all but resigned myself to quitting Fastmail. I would like to see servers in Switzerland or in the EU, with STRONG protection for privacy, both legal and technical.

Will hang in a bit longer. It's not that I have anything to hide, I'm simply not enthusiastic about economic complicity in the US government's grotesque treatment of all non-citizens as potential Al Qaeda members.

[odedp]

Great news!!
Good luck

[David]

Congratulations on your new acquisition Fastmail Hopefully you will start talking to us again (as you used to do in the past) Hopefully (also) you will keep your official support forums in place, right here at email discussions.