Cyrusoft Files Chapter 7, Mulberry Dead

[shenton]

This just received from Mulberry discussion list!

Hi folks,
It is with deep regret that I have to inform you of the immediate cessation
of operations of Cyrusoft International, Inc./ISAMET. The company today
filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

This situation is the culmination of a series of events that has taken
place over the last few months. Whilst I have made my own best efforts to
avoid this, regrettably those came to naught.

Sadly this situation pretty much means the end of Mulberry. Its now almost
ten years since I wrote the first code of the Macintosh IMAP email client
that would become Mulberry. It has been a labor of love and much personal
sacrifice, and despite this disheartening outcome, I do maintain a certain
amount of pride of what was achieved with limited resources.

That said, my biggest disappointment is for the effect this will have on
our customers. Customers have come and some have gone, but for the most
part many have remained loyal and helped us battle through new releases
with feedback and help over the years. Its sad that at this time with a new
major release just out and the prospect of exploring new avenues with the
calendaring capability, that this situation has occurred.

Right now all assets of the company are in the hands of the bankruptcy
trustee, including the software and other items that make up the Mulberry
product suite. Whilst there might be some opportunity to recover those at
some point in the future, there would certainly be no business left from it
as customers would likely have switched or be in the process of switching
to alternative clients. Building up a new business from scratch would be
very hard.

The possibility of open sourcing the code is also limited due to
dependencies on third-party code and development tools that would require
some significant reworking to make it viable for anyone to even compile and
use. And with the number of other open source clients that exist now, one
would have to ask whether there would be any point to that anyway.

The last set of releases we did yesterday will hopefully allow continued
use of Mulberry whilst other options are examined and evaluated by you.
Transitioning data from Mulberry to elsewhere should not be too difficult
as all our local data formats are standards based - though things like
rules and preferences will of course have to be recreated.

The website and mailing lists will likely continue to operate for a while
before the plug is pulled, so you should be able to continue to discuss
this event there, however, whilst bankruptcy proceedings are ongoing, I'm
afraid I won't be able to comment further.

This has been something of a roller-coaster ride, particularly of late, and
now, sadly, our Mulberry tree has been felled. It has been a pleasure to
work with all of you and you have my good wishes for the future.

--
Cyrus Daboo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mulberry Information <mailto:info@mulberrymail.com>
Cyrusoft International, Inc. <http://www.mulberrymail.com>
Voice: +1 412 605 0499 Fax: +1 412 605 0705
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[JeffK]

This text is also now on the Mulberry home page. That's serious stuff.

JeffK

[Cerebus]

From the Mulberry mailing list:

Hi folks,
It is with deep regret that I have to inform you of the immediate cessation of operations of Cyrusoft International, Inc./ISAMET. The company today filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

This situation is the culmination of a series of events that has taken place over the last few months. Whilst I have made my own best efforts to avoid this, regrettably those came to naught.

Sadly this situation pretty much means the end of Mulberry. Its now almost ten years since I wrote the first code of the Macintosh IMAP email client that would become Mulberry. It has been a labor of love and much personal sacrifice, and despite this disheartening outcome, I do maintain a certain amount of pride of what was achieved with limited resources.

That said, my biggest disappointment is for the effect this will have on our customers. Customers have come and some have gone, but for the most part many have remained loyal and helped us battle through new releases with feedback and help over the years. Its sad that at this time with a new major release just out and the prospect of exploring new avenues with the calendaring capability, that this situation has occurred.

Right now all assets of the company are in the hands of the bankruptcy trustee, including the software and other items that make up the Mulberry product suite. Whilst there might be some opportunity to recover those at some point in the future, there would certainly be no business left from it as customers would likely have switched or be in the process of switching to alternative clients. Building up a new business from scratch would be very hard.

The possibility of open sourcing the code is also limited due to dependencies on third-party code and development tools that would require some significant reworking to make it viable for anyone to even compile and use. And with the number of other open source clients that exist now, one would have to ask whether there would be any point to that anyway.

The last set of releases we did yesterday will hopefully allow continued use of Mulberry whilst other options are examined and evaluated by you. Transitioning data from Mulberry to elsewhere should not be too difficult as all our local data formats are standards based - though things like rules and preferences will of course have to be recreated.

The website and mailing lists will likely continue to operate for a while before the plug is pulled, so you should be able to continue to discuss this event there, however, whilst bankruptcy proceedings are ongoing, I'm afraid I won't be able to comment further.

This has been something of a roller-coaster ride, particularly of late, and now, sadly, our Mulberry tree has been felled. It has been a pleasure to work with all of you and you have my good wishes for the future.

--
Cyrus Daboo

It's a sad, sad day.

[Trip]

Holy cow! Are you kidding me?!?! I'm floored....

THAT is a shame. The best email client on the market goes bye bye. ...I hope Ritlabs can keep TheBat! viable.... *crosses fingers*

Trip

[Trip]

Mods, there's been another post in the "Misc." forum. Might want to combine that thread with this one and keep the new thread in the Early Warning forums. Eh?

Trip

[nbarr]

Very unfortunate indeed.

[anj]

How sad. Mulberry was a sort of standard bearer for what features were possible under IMAP. I can remember many a time asking, is it possible to do such and such... and the answer invariably came "Mulberry can do it!"

Why'd they go bankrupt?

[rmns2bseen]

That's surprising, considering how popular it had apparently become (at least judging from this forum). Goes to show that you shouldn't become too attached to anything in the Internet world, huh.

[Aleks]

ch7, huh. well, that's it. ch7 is pretty much the end of the line...

[David]

How long will it be, before the mulberry code, becomes so ancient that there is no point in using it?

I would think that Mullberry would remain a useful client for a few more years to come. Outlook Express (for mac os) has not seen any updates for years, yet still it remains a useful client. Indeed, it is still the best (free) client for mac classic o/s.

[hellie]

How sad I have only just disvovered it.

Helen

[Cerebus]

Even without updates or official support, Mulberry is still a far better client than anything else out there and will continue to be for years as other clients struggle to keep up with the high bar for IMAP that Cyrus has set.

[Gankaku]

Wow. I never used Mulberry because I didn't like it. However, I know a lot of people here and other places use it and love it. I'm sure they're pretty upset.

It's very interesting to see this news. Thanks for posting it.

[hadaso]

There is a page to download the latest versions, but when trying to download the latest win32 version I get "421 There are too many connected users, please try later." So I guess it became popular just a bit too late... (or it is being slashdotted...)

[hellie]

The Website has totally gone now.

Helen