InsideMicrosoft

Microsoft Looking At Buying Xobni

TechCrunch reports that Microsoft is in discussions with email startup Xobni about a possible purchase of the company. Xobni makes a really useful plugin for Microsoft’s Outlook, which creates a profile for every person you interact with and displays statistics and history based on whatever you are looking at. Xobni shows all past conversations with a contact, threaded conversations, past attachments, people in common, and email usage statistics, all using only information gleaned from analyzing your inbox.

Essentially, Xobni creates a social network around Outlook, and could be built to support more platforms. Xobni’s has a lot of buzz since it launched five months ago, and it’s easy to see why Microsoft might buy it. TechCrunch said Microsoft first offered $20 million and was rejected, but they’re back at the table, presumably with a larger offer.

Interestingly, here’s Bill Gates praising Xobni:

March 3rd, 2008 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Outlook, Corporate, Applications | one comment