Exciting news: FastMail staff purchase the business from Opera

In 2010, FastMail was bought by Opera Software. The developers and staff of FastMail have now bought back the company. This means that FastMail is once again an independent company, dedicated to building the best possible email experience for our users. We have big plans for the future, and we will continue to roll out new features and enhancements over the coming months.

There are no configuration changes or any other changes you need to make. All existing accounts will continue to run as they do now with the same billing cycle, pricing, features, reliability, security, etc.

In case you have any questions, we’ve tried to address the main issues below.

• Why has Opera sold you? Are you in trouble?

  Not at all. Opera has undergone an internal change of strategic
  direction and an email service no longer fits within their long term
  vision. With Opera’s investment in development and infrastructure
  over the last 3 years, FastMail has continued to increase its rate
  of growth and profitability. We came to the mutual conclusion that
  FastMail’s future would be better served as a separate company.

• How will this affect future development work?

  FastMail is keeping all existing FastMail related staff. We believe
  we have all the resources and talent needed to keep developing and
  growing FastMail now and going forward into the future.

• What sort of things do you have planned?

  A hugely improved mobile interface, CardDAV support to allow
  synchronisation of contacts between devices, a calendaring service
  including CalDAV support for synchronisation of events between
  devices, improved backend and searching performance. All these
  things are currently in active development and slated for release
  within the next year.

• This all sounds great. Is there any way I can help?

  The best way to help us is continue to use FastMail. It’s the
  support we get from our users that allows us to keep running and
  developing the service.

  Tell your friends that there’s a real alternative to the big
  corporations. One that doesn’t show ads, respects your privacy, and
  is fully committed to keeping the service going forward.

  Tweet about us. Post about us on your blog. Make you and your boss
  happy by switching your work email to FastMail 🙂

• How does this affect the privacy of my email and other data?

  We have always taken our users’ privacy very seriously and this will
  not change. We’re working on publishing an updated privacy policy
  next week that will explain in clear wording exactly how your data
  is treated. We’ll post to the blog with more information soon.

Thanks for using FastMail. We’ve put a lot of thought and effort into building the fastest, easiest and most powerful way to access your email. We look forward to providing you with the best service we can.

The FastMail Team