Sabeer Bhatia | |
|---|---|
| Born | 30 December 1968 (age 55)[1] Chandigarh,[2] India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur |
| Known for | Hotmail.com |
| Spouse |
Tanya Sharma
(m. 2008; div. 2013) |
| Children | 1 |
Sabeer Bhatia (born 30 December 1968)[3] is an Indian businessman who co-founded the first free web-based email service, Hotmail.com in 1996.[4]
Career
Bhatia briefly worked for Apple Computer, as a hardware engineer and Firepower Systems Inc. He, along with his colleague Jack Smith, set up Hotmail on 4 July 1996, American Independence Day, symbolizing "freedom" from ISP-based e-mail and the ability to access a user's inbox from anywhere in the world.[5]
As president and CEO, Bhatia led Hotmail until its eventual acquisition by Microsoft in 1998 for an estimated $400 million. Bhatia worked at Microsoft for one year after the Hotmail acquisition and in April 1999, left Microsoft to start another venture, Arzoo Inc, an e-commerce firm with investment from Mohammed Asif, a top Indian-American banker at JP Morgan.
Bhatia started a free messaging service called JaxtrSMS. He said that JaxtrSMS would do to SMS what Hotmail did for e-mail. Claiming it to be a disruptive technology, he says that the operators will lose revenue on the reduction in number of SMSes on their network but will benefit from the data plan that the user has to buy.[6] To date, JaxtrSMS service has failed to replicate the success of Hotmail. Recently, he invested in email collaboration software, ccZen and another e-commerce technology provider E-junkie.
Personal life
Bhatia is of Punjabi heritage.[7][8][9] His father, Baldev Bhatia, was a captain in the Indian Army and his mother worked for the Central Bank of India. He did his schooling from Bishops School, Pune.
Bhatia married Tanya Sharma in 2008 and they have a daughter together. Later, they filed for divorce in January 2013 in a court in San Francisco, citing "irreconcilable differences".
References
- ↑ Bhatia, Sabeer (10 August 2002). "Sabeer Bhatia downloaded". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 18 May 2010. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
- ↑ Gibbs, Samuel (11 April 2014). "The most powerful Indian technologists in Silicon Valley". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 11 April 2016. Retrieved 11 April 2016.
- ↑ Bhatia, Sabeer (10 August 2002). "Sabeer Bhatia downloaded". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 18 May 2010. Retrieved 11 April 2016.
- ↑ "Sabeer Bhatia bio". its.caltech.edu. Retrieved 11 December 2018.
- ↑ "Sabeer Bhatiya : The founder of "Hotmail.com"". 4to40.com. Archived from the original on 10 February 2007. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ↑ "AFP: Hotmail co-founder launches free SMS service". Archived from the original on 25 November 2011. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
- ↑ Vora, Rutam (1 April 2016). "Tongue-tied in Sindhi". The Hindu. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
- ↑ Sakhrani, Tarun (4 January 2016). "The Sindhis of Sindh And Beyond". HuffPost. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
- ↑ Pal, Joyojeet (30 May 2008). "Computers and the Promise of Development: Aspiration, Neoliberalism and 'Technolity' in India's ICTD enterprise" (PDF). University of California at Berkeley. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 April 2016. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
Further reading
- Hirahara, Naomi; Smith, Henrietta M. (2003). Distinguished Asian American Business Leaders. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 23–26. ISBN 978-1573563444. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
- Bronson, Po, "HotMale: Sabeer Bhatia started his company on $300,000 and sold it two years later for $400 million. So, is he lucky, or great?", Wired, Issue 6.12, December 1999
- Sabeer Bhatia; Asian American Journalists Association (2000). Asian-Americans & society. West Lafayette, Ind., C-SPAN Archives. ISBN 9781573563444. OCLC 51456022.