Xobni used to have their offices right next to ours when I lived in SF. I used their free software back in the day on Outlook (mid-2008) and it was pretty freaking cool. I was using a beta or free version of some sort but that was ages ago. I switched back to Mac and stopped using Xobni.
Fast forward to last year, I moved to New Hampshire, get a job at a corporation and go back to Windows. I buy Xobni Plus for $30 in November. Then, in March there was a software update to version 2.0. Whipeeee!!! It was an exciting moment. However, all of the features I paid $29 for went away. They were gone. What happened?
Xobni Pro happened. Pricing $9.99 ($7.99 at launch) for each month you use it for $50 for the year. I found this handy item that compared Xobni Free, Plus & Pro:
It would seem that, users of Xobni Plus paid $30 one time (some as far back as 2008) and that was the model and Xobni introduced cloud services and changed to a yearly model. Nothing wrong with that but some of us aren’t enterprise users meaning some of us enjoy the benefits of Xobni on Gmail, Outlook and Blackberry and don’t believe $48 a year is worth what Xobni adds especially when we were paying $30 before for 3 years and now are being asked to cough up $150 for the same time frame.
What does Xobni add to us who were on a $30 lifetime plan before that is now a $50 dollar a year plan?
- Contact Exporting (blackberry)
- Universal search (blackberry)
- Advanced customization
- daily spam rescue alerts
- new blue design
That is NOT a value proposition in any way.
I paid $30 once and had some great features and now, I’m being asked to pay $150 for the similar period and get a custom blue UI?
Ridiculous
Besides, I’m on an Exchange backbone meaning my contacts were already available over the air anywhere in the world on my iPhone. And, we have spam tools already and so what if I have a different UI.
Xobni, to me looks like it did before except with 2.0, I see “Xobni Pro required” everywhere I go. Of course, no one is forcing me to upgrade.
If you have an existing Xobni Plus license and installed Xobni 2.0, you have three options:
- Download Xobni 1.9.5 and activate Plus
- Stay on 2.0 as a free user
- Upgrade to Xobni Pro 2.0
Solution 1 – Revert to Xobni Plus 1.9.5
- Make sure you have 1.9.5 installed. You can confirm your version by clicking Xobni > About. If you accidentally upgraded to 2.0 and want to revert, please re-install 1.9.5.
- Activate Xobni Plus by clicking Xobni > Options > Xobni Plus > Activate and log in with your Xobni account credentials
Solution 2 – Use Xobni 2.0 free edition
- Download and install Xobni 2.0 from this link
Solution 3 – Upgrade to Xobni Pro 2.0
- Purchase Xobni Pro from our order page (existing Plus users get Pro at a discounted price)
- Download and install Xobni 2.0 from this link
I can go back to 1.9.5 and stay there for life and enjoy the benefits of my one time $29 fee. My only fear is being left behind. One day there may be some killer feature I missed out on in a time where Xobni is twice as expensive and I missed out by not being grandfathered in, but until that happens, I’m going to stick with the old version.
Xobni notes that I get special pricing on the new version of Xobni, but while logged into their site, I only see on price $7.99 a month or $49 a year. I am logged in with my account that has Xobni Plus registered but i see the regular pricing.
Oh well, back to the old version.