Press release
Creators of the Most Popular Microsoft Outlook Add-in Announce First Mobile Product; Xobni Now Available for BlackBerry Smartphones
London, UK., - March 17, 2010 - Xobni, a company known to date as a popular Microsoft Outlook add-in that has been downloaded almost 5 million times to help people manage their email and relationships, today announced Xobni Mobile, available first on BlackBerry® smartphones. Xobni Mobile reinvents the address book; automatically creating rich profiles for every contact you've ever communicated with, regardless of whether they've been manually added to the native address book. Xobni Mobile for BlackBerry® smartphones is now available for download at www.xobni.com/mobile and soon on BlackBerry App World(tm). As part of the launch, Xobni is also announcing Xobni One, a service that links information between Microsoft Outlook and mobile versions of Xobni for a more comprehensive and up-to-date address book.
"Xobni Mobile automatically builds and maintains the fastest, most complete and smartest address book you've ever used," said Jeff Bonforte, CEO of Xobni. "The launch of Xobni Mobile on the BlackBerry platform is an important milestone for the company, and we have made this even more compelling by powering it with Xobni One. This new service is the foundation for all our future products, and is the result of a significant investment from our product and engineering teams."
Xobni automatically creates rich profiles for anyone you've communicated with, and offers the most complete and up-to-date contacts ranked in order of relevance versus alphabetically. Xobni Mobile makes these contacts available to you on the BlackBerry smartphone by opening the Xobni Mobile application, or by "flicking up" on the trackball or trackpad while in the compose window of the native BlackBerry Email application. This deep product integration allows BlackBerry smartphone users immediate access to all their contacts when they need them, in ranked order without requiring users to change the way they use email on the BlackBerry.
"BlackBerry smartphone users enjoy an industry leading mobile messaging experience that enables them to seamlessly access relevant and timely information. Xobni Mobile builds on the experience with extended contact management and search functionality and maintains ease-of-use by integrating with the core BlackBerry messaging and address book applications in a rich and highly contextualised manner," said Tyler Lessard, Vice President, Global Alliances and Developer Relations at Research In Motion.
Product Details
Xobni Mobile is immediately available on BlackBerry smartphones and can be purchased as an on-device product, and can also link with Microsoft Outlook via the Xobni One service.
Xobni Mobile with Xobni One enables consumers to connect Xobni for Outlook with Xobni Mobile on their BlackBerry smartphones, making contact information for every person a user has ever communicated with in Outlook immediately available on the BlackBerry. Other contact management functionality includes:
* Email addresses for everyone with whom you communicate
* Automatic phone number extraction
* Access to contacts using Xobni within the email compose screen or in standalone application
* Prioritised contacts using Xobni Rank, which lists contacts by how often you communicate with them versus alphabetically
* Saving of Xobni profiles in the event of hard drive crash or lost phone
* Quick access to valuable information, including:
o One-click access to Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, including photos o Recent SMS, phone calls and emails exchanged, and shared appointments o Shared network of people o Ability to send your calendar availability to all contacts
Non-Outlook users receiving other email on their BlackBerry smartphone (Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Lotus Notes, etc.) can now take advantage of Xobni functionality on their BlackBerry smartphone by simply downloading the app without Xobni One. These users will not get the benefit of the historic contacts locked up in Outlook, but Xobni will index email on their BlackBerry smartphone at time of download and moving forward.
Xobni Mobile is currently compatible with the BlackBerry® Tour(tm) and BlackBerry® Curve(tm) 8900 smartphones, as well as the BlackBerry® Bold(tm) and BlackBerry® Storm(tm) series smartphones.
Pricing
The Xobni Mobile for BlackBerry smartphone product and Xobni One service is now available. Pricing options below:
* Xobni Mobile standalone app for BlackBerry: $9.99 one-time fee
* Xobni Mobile with Xobni One: $6.99 one-time fee + $3.99 recurring monthly fee
* One-year of Xobni Mobile on BlackBerry with Xobni One: $39.90/year
In November of last year, the company released Xobni Enterprise, a solution specifically designed to help businesses of all sizes to easily customise and deploy Xobni throughout the organisation. Xobni expects the mobile product to be fully integrated with the Enterprise offering later this year.
