Xmarks Fielding "Multiple Offers"

Posted 10/08/2010 at 7:49am | by Paul Lilly

2

Comments

Print

Nothing is carved in stone just yet, but it appears that Xmarks, the cross-browser synchronization service, isn't going belly-up after all.

"Thanks to your passion, Xmarks now has multiple offers from companies ready and willing to take over the service and keep making your browser sync better and better!," Xmarks stated in a blog post.

"This is not a signed, sealed done deal yet. But with multiple offers on the table we're pretty confident that Xmarks will continue on with no service interruptions."

That's quite a different tune than what was coming from the Xmarks camp just a couple of weeks ago when it appeared the service's demise was all but imminent. Following news that Xmarks would be shutting down, the company received an outpouring of support from users offering to pay for the free plug-in. In response, Xmarks set up the Xmarks Pledge asking users to sign it if they'd be willing for fork over $10 to $20 annually to keep the service alive.

"We're close to thirty thousand pledges already, and that's without promoting this to our entire user base... Thanks to all of you who pledged so far. This has really helped show the value of Xmarks to potential buyers."

The company said it didn't know how this would ultimately play out, but it appears that the new business model will include keeping part of the service for free with some advanced features reserved for "Premium" users.