They have a pretty good plan for a startup if you want to go without a mail server for some time.
For mails generated by user interaction, eg. "You have a new answer to your question.", they have the limit of 2000 per hour. Can cover you for the first 2.000 - 3.000 users. And mail from their servers don't trigger spam filters at Google, Hotmail etc.
I hope they keep the Business accounts running. Here's the features and pricing table:
I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not. On the optimistic side, it could mean a more resourceful entity with plenty of goodies coming in like more File Hosting space.
On the other hand, I've been using the paid Fastmail service for over 4 years now and one thing they did head and shoulders above the bigger players was their service and support. Plus they were always pretty geeky, making sure the expert user had lots of configuration options to tweak every possible thing. Their sieve filtering was perhaps the best out there and the old web interface rocks.
What I fear is Opera trying to make FM into a mass consumer product losing the technical edge and going for the more flashy features like online chats rather than putting in better sieve capabilities or something like better Pine/Alpine support. How I wish this doesn't kill FM (I've prepaid for 2 years more). I would hate to make a email service switch since that is my primary communication medium online.
I don't know if you've used Opera, but it's by far the geekiest/most customizable browser, IMO. Total remapping of all shortcuts, ability to reconstruct the interface however you like from primitive controls, built in support for content (ad) blocking and mouse gestures, user script (Greasemonkey, sorta) support also built in, etc. I've never used Fastmail, but as you describe it, they couldn't have picked a better browser to sell to.
I do use Opera as my primary browser since I've gotten used to it from the 5.x timeframe. And I do agree that they could not have chosen a better browser to sell to.
However, I'm wondering if it should have been sold at all, specifically to a company that makes browsers. Why not to a hosting company like Rackspace's acquisition of Mailtrust and perhaps more importantly, why sell at all if it was a pretty profitable entity.
Now this may be the founder's big exit and I sincerely congratulate them for it, however my concern lies about the consumer (me). I hope it all turns out for the best of everyone involved, but I do have my reservations till I actually see FM operating as well as, if not better, than the FM of old.
The founder hasn't been involved with the service for years. The people who actually ran the service are still running it, and will keep doing that as Opera employees.
Also: Opera doesn't just make browsers. Opera also makes all sorts of services for both users and b2b customers. The browser just ties it all together.
I pretty much agree with you. While I can understand their decision to sell to Opera, at the same time, I feel that Opera will probably ruin Fastmail by trying to turn it into just another Hotmail/Yahoo Mail/Gmail competitor.
Then again, who knows? Maybe this will end up being awesome.
If you read Opera's statements, they are not going to change the service. It's going to keep running as it always has. They are just going to use the technology to build other stuff or something.
I don't know if you're the webmail kind of guy, but you can check out Lavabit.com, too. I've been using that for years and never had any problems. They basically started out as a response to Gmail's initial privacy concerns.
I'm one of the main developers and was one of the (now previous) owners of Fastmail.
Fastmail has always been a small company, there are just 3-4 main developers (myself, Bron, Richard and recently in the last year, Kurian), and a couple of support staff scattered around world. For that small size, I think we've managed to build a pretty great product with lots of niche and power features, loyal users, and apart from a small disaster in 2006 (2-3 day outage for a big chunk of users), we've also been incredibly reliable, especially in recent years.
Fastmail was nicely profitable, but not spectacularly so. We're basically all geeks, and we don't have a marketing or sales department that can grow our customer base significantly (we tried, but it didn't work out, and we probably should have put more effort in, but didn't... because we probably preferred to spend time just building neat stuff, or fixing that edge case bug, or doing that fun thing... like I said, geeks).
I think we had to face facts a bit, we were a small fish with limited resources in a market that has become severely more competitive in recent years. We needed to invest a bunch of time and money in updating our interface, and adding new features (especially better mobile syncing).
And coincidentally, it's around that time that Opera came along and started talking to us. Despite being half a world apart, there's a lot of fit between the companies. They use a lot of perl, we do to. They're a company run by technology people, creating a product that's loved by geeks, is highly customisable, has a loyal fan base, and despite it's small size, punches above it's weight. I think that describes us pretty much as well.
So the timing was right, and Opera have an interest in picking up email as a core competency, and a bunch of ideas on what they want to improve, what they want to build. The other Fastmail guys were also interested in new opportunities, and we're all becoming Opera staff and are committed to working there for a few years at least. There's already plans for some staff to move to Norway to work, a change of life after 5 years of just 3 of us in a single office (apparently the Norwegian lessons are paying off... Jeg vil gjerne et øl til)
So it'll be an interesting change, and something new I'm looking forward to. I've been working for Fastmail for 10 years now. It's been a great time. I've loved building the product and the company. Like anything, there's been ups (it's fun developing a site that customers really love and tell you about) and downs (some people are addicted to being able to access their email, and running a 24/7 email service means that if people can't get to their email for even just 1 minute, you'll start hearing about it). After 10 years, it'll be strange having a boss again. I've met a bunch of the Opera people, and it'll be really great working with them. I know the other staff are looking forward to it as well.
It'll also be great to have Neil on board as well. He worked for us over a couple of summers, and basically designed the entire "new" web interface, all the HTML, CSS and JS. We've already got 80% of a whole new AJAX interface done (remember in programming though, the first 80% takes 80% of the time, the remaining 20% takes the other 80% of the time), and I'm looking forward to completely finishing that off, and working on a bunch of new stuff.
Hmmm, this story went on longer than I expected. Hope it's interesting to someone...
I too hope you've done well out of the deal. I've been a paying Fastmail customer for ~7 years and am very happy with it. The 2006 downtime and a few other hiccups around the same time were annoying, but since then things have felt rock solid.
I find the spam filter better than the one in Gmail, so thanks to whoever's done the hard work with that.
And thank you for keeping the old web interface around, I prefer it over the newer one. There's nothing particularly wrong with the newer one, I'm just very used to the way the old one works and find it fast enough without AJAX enhancements. That you kept the old interface going is one of the reasons I stayed with Fastmail, if you'd forced a switch to the new one I'd have probably gone to Gmail.
Congratulations is in order. I've been using Fastmail since at least 2001 and have been a paying user for the last eight years. I hope it continues to be the quality service it has been going forward.
I am displeased that the FAQ doesn't mention any relevant privacy concerns, even though for many people the fact that FM was a small company with a good track record and privacy policy was an important reason to choose the service.
I also recognize the dismay of this comment:
- 'FastMail's practical approach to user privacy has always been to be extremely protective of customer privacy'.
...or we may just sell your all of your data to a third party, giving you zero days notice or an option to cancel without refund.
I really wished they would have at least given us some time to figure out what we want to do.
There was no way to give people time to figure it out. The acquisition needed to remain a secret until actually carried out, and once it was carried out, this was the only way to inform people.
Also, Opera Software has an excellent privacy track record, and is located in Norway, which has some of the world's strictest privacy laws.
No, Opera has a very clear focus. They are not only a browser company, but also provides browser related services. They make money off of those things. With this they can offer better email/messaging services to their business customers.
Big companies seem to have to start prototypes and follow various paths, maybe Opera are just bad at not telling too much, too early or at killing the ones that don't stick.
For mails generated by user interaction, eg. "You have a new answer to your question.", they have the limit of 2000 per hour. Can cover you for the first 2.000 - 3.000 users. And mail from their servers don't trigger spam filters at Google, Hotmail etc.
I hope they keep the Business accounts running. Here's the features and pricing table:
http://www.fastmail.fm/pages/fastmail/docs/pricingtbl.html