But how likely are the terms to get better down the road? And, if Microsoft is interested enough in your idea, are the barriers to entry really sufficient to keep them out of the solution-space?
The latter is clearly case by case. The likelihood of terms getting better depends on the company's trajectory. That is, in this case, if Xobni grows by two orders of magnitude in important metrics, their valuation is likely to grow as well.
Sorry, I remain unconvinced. If Microsoft thinks that the problem-space that Xobni solves is interesting enough to attempt a purchase, I suspect that if rejected, they would put their attentions to building or buying a substitute. Even if Xobni's userbase grew by two orders of magnitude after the fact, I suspect that once the Microsoft ship has sailed, it won't be stopping in that particular port again. In this case, since Xobni's product is parasitic upon a product of Microsoft's, I doubt that somebody else is going to come along with a more attractive offer in any event.
So: I think for Xobni the time has come to sell, and try to get the best deal they can. And, in the general case, if one is building a product that is parasitic upon a major platform, and the platform vendor makes an offer-- ring the bell, it's dinner time.
No problem. Your response is very limited to this case, while I thought you asked a more general question about why you might pass on a Microsoft offer.
Consider the edge cases, which is always a great idea.
If Microsoft offered them $1 today, clearly it is not appropriate to sell, despite Microsoft taking them time to be interested.
If they turn down the offer, and 6 months later grow to 10M users from 100K, clearly the terms should change.
Now your point seems to be that they won't change because Microsoft won't offer any terms again, ever. However, in my experience, this is not how M&A negotiations usually go. The door hardly ever closes for good. And it is quite common for people to walk away only to resume shortly thereafter (months) with different terms.
Now whether Microsoft decides to pursue it or not is a different story, and I don't know enough about the internal workings of Microsoft to know the likelihood of that.
As for other offers from other buyers, I don't see why not. I don't use Xobni now, but if it is a general solution that is generally applicable to email, that solution is presumably valuable to more than just Microsoft.
