GoDaddy Buys Media Temple(techcrunch.com) |
GoDaddy Buys Media Temple(techcrunch.com) |
Good riddance.
Greetings,
I am proud to share some momentous news with you today. GoDaddy, the Internet's largest platform for small businesses, has acquired (mt) Media Temple. We will continue operating as an independent and autonomous company and our mission will remain unchanged. However, new investments from GoDaddy will provide us the necessary resources to strengthen our focus on web professionals and will help accelerate our plans to expand internationally.
At Media Temple, we've always been on a mission to provide the highest quality service at the lowest possible price. When I co-founded the company in 1998, I saw an industry that wasn't meeting the needs of web designers all that well. At one extreme, there was expensive and overly-complex dedicated hosting that required customers to over-build their solutions. At the other extreme, there was incredibly cheap "unlimited" hosting that was untrustworthy and lacked class and transparency. At neither end was there a company truly qualified to understand and partner with the creative community.
Thanks to incredible customers like you, our model worked out. We've doubled-down on designers and have created a new platform to help people push the outer limits of the web. Now with 225 employees, Media Temple serves 125,000 customers making up more than 1.5 million websites in over 100 countries. We are proud to be one of Los Angeles' original startups, repeatedly recognized as one of the best places to work in the city — and one of the fastest-growing companies in the world.
Personally, working with GoDaddy on the acquisition this year has been unexpected, yet incredibly rewarding. Led by new CEO Blake Irving, the GoDaddy leadership team, which now includes Media Temple's President, Russell P. Reeder, is transforming the company with fresh thinking, new advertising, and an inspiring new strategy. It really is impressive, and so is their new mission: "Help small businesses easily start, confidently grow, and successfully run their online ventures."
Though our customers have traditionally been very different, both companies have similar priorities of providing excellent service experiences. However, we also understand and respect the vast differences and needs of our respective customer bases. Hence, Media Temple will continue to run as an independent business and is not being integrated into GoDaddy. Our customers should not experience any changes to their service levels, pricing, or the expert support we are known for. We're not moving our servers, and the phone number is not changing. We will remain in Los Angeles and will stay committed to being the most amazing hosting provider possible. In all seriousness, our mission to host great ideas feels like it's just getting started!
I am confident that Media Temple has made the right decision and I know the company is only going to get better from here. Please see our website FAQ to understand this news even further. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know at questions@mediatemple.net.
Thank you so very much for your passion, your feedback, and your support over the years.
Best regards,
Demian Sellfors (mt) Media Temple Co-founder @demian_sellfors
Well... until a month ago. I finally had a project that required a server based in North America. I chose MT quite rapidly, feeling confident about my decision and/or not caring enough to analyze the market.
And today, this (not so good) news. GoDaddy has had a very bad press for the last couple of years, and it seems like the philosophy gap between the two companies will be hard to handle. I guess it's just bad timing on my behalf but I'll try to stick to MT for the beginning.
Although yesterday I would have indisputably pursued my experience with MT for many years, I will now closely watch any subtle change in their customer policy and probably leave at the first signs of trouble, no matter how slight they can appear.
That line about it staying "independent" is total crap. I stupidly got locked into Outright and now a year or so after their acquisition by GoDaddy its now magically "GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping" and they want to link it with my GoDaddy account. Independent my ass. So now GoDaddy has all my business records sitting next to my MT accounts, old domain names etc. Ugh
http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/23/mediatemple/ (click 'Trends')
I don't see much evidence of 'improving' but it looks fairly stable. It will be very interesting to watch what happens after today though.
I've been watching http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/33/asmallorange/ because they are in a similar situation but half a year ahead of MT. They were bought out by EIG (Endurance International Group - which own HostGator, BlueHost, Host Monster, etc) back in March. They've been run independently and their service seems to have improved (cue EIG hate here). It's easy to craft stories, but I always like to see the data.
You're right that any "things are gonna stay awesome!" through an acquisition is pipe talk. It's just a lie in an attempt to minimize churn.
I have a strong hatred for GoDaddy, and will never consider Media Temple for any of their services now. Sorry MT guys, I just hate GoDaddy THAT much.
Until GoDaddy actually proves they've turned a new leaf, I think you're going to have a hard time convincing your customers (myself included) that this acquisition is about anything other than money.
It takes momentous effort to turn around a notoriously bad brand, and with such fierce competition, there will need to be some serious benefits to convince me to stick with MT.
Truth be told, if your service is comparable to other services, I'd rather not give my money to a company owned by GoDaddy.
We're definitely excited about the move. We know GoDaddy may have had a not so stellar reputation in the past, but we're very happy with the changes they've made this year. Along with that, we are very happy to get the funding and resources we need to make bigger and better products. We want to put out better products with the same style and flare, and we can now do it a lot better and a lot faster. Our support isn't changing, products aren't changing, and the only real big change today is that we're getting cake and lunch on the house.
Feel free to shoot any questions at me, or check out our weblog for a FAQ http://weblog.mediatemple.net/2013/10/15/faqs-about-the-goda...
Who should I switch to? Just have some WordPress site hosted on MediaTemple mostly...
Demian’s succession plan has been a long time in the making. In fact, Demian engineered the company’s strategy resulting in this acquisition. About a year and a half ago. Demian handpicked Russell P. Reeder to run the company. Both have been intimately involved with this acquisition. Demian will be shifting his focus to other projects, but his dream for (mt) to be the most trusted company in the world is still very much alive.
What about the other co-founder, John Carey?
John Carey, (mt)’s co-founder and CFO, is transitioning out of (mt) as part of the acquisition. He has also been intimately involved with the strategy as well. This is something he’s been planning for and thinking about for some time.
Pretty boggling statistic: GoDaddy has four thousand employees. Twitter has around half that.
Like a Stanford dorm room on steroids, our Sunnyvale office is 40,000 square-feet of Bay Area badassery, brimming with some of the biggest brains on the planet, dreaming up digital masterpieces and keeping time in agile sprints.
Look at Groupon as an example of real world staffing gone awry.
Similarly, I'm not gonna be surprised to see a post-IPO Twitter start pumping resources into their sales departments as well. A lot of their high-value partnerships and channels are going to require a little bit more personality than what they've put into the current Twitter Ads offering.
However, that fruit has yet to bare so I am 100% not happy with this at all. I'm actually really disappointed/frustrated/mad right now. This was my safe haven away from everything that budget hosts like GoDaddy did, stood for, provided, etc.
These kind of acquisitions always starts with "We won't be making any major changes" and then the company pulls a Yahoo and begins to slowly deteriorate.
This is the worst news, in regards to my every day business, that I've heard all year. I have 20 clients with DV servers, as well as my own servers and I am now feeling uneasy about this.
Also, have we not forgotten the anti-sopa / anti-godaddy coupon codes MediaTemple was giving out when people were bailing from GoDaddy during the SOPA/PIPA uproar? What happened to that? Nooooooo.
I've been through several hosting buyouts with my clients over the last 13 years and none have ended well. Even after the dust settles, the "New Company" almost always loses it's original formula for success and with it, it's original customers.
Lessons learned: Host with bigger hosts less likely to be snapped up. Diversify your client hosting providers so one botched buyout will not sink you.
1) Media Temple (mt) revealed that they have very slow growth.
2) GoDaddy buys (mt).
Do you think GoDaddy bought (mt) out of the goodness of their hearts? To GoDaddy this is an investment. If they spend $100 million buying your company, they want your company to produce $200+ million back and they'll tinker with whatever they need to to make that happen.
3) GoDaddy sees that (mt) with it's slow growth isn't paying itself off. (and after today's news even slower growth)
4) GoDaddy starts making changes (merging teams, merging products, changing terms, playing with prices and plans) to see an increase in revenue.
MT is not perceived as a good host on wht ... it usually gets average or below average review ... so I dont know why everyone is talking as if godaddy will bring them down, MT was never a great company
And i do believe the MT fellow who is saying this will improve MT, sure it will ... godaddy is by far a bigger and more successful company than MT
On the other hand, I hate GoDaddy and will absolutely not remain a MT customer.
Anyone have a list of good alternatives for reliable semi-managed VPS hosting in the US?
It's a crap statement from MT. Nearly a lie. However, it will take several months until MT starts to show real singes of GoDaddy infiltration - in my opinion.
My experience at MT has been excellent over the last 4 years, & conversely my experience with GoDaddy VPS & Private servers have been horrible, a joke, & expensive - resulting in the loss of several $five $figure accounts for my little company.
I've actually MADE great new clients & good money MOVING them off of GoDaddy platforms into my other hosts - MT being the front runner.
Is it time to move services? Yes and no. In the short run (like 6 months) it's a 'wait and see' deal. I am going to move most of my 436 websites/clients away from MT over the next year, and keep and hand-full of sites at MT on my DV (vps) just in case the GoDaddy buyout actually works out.
I've NEVER experienced a successful buyout as an existing account holder.
Message to MT: YOU HAVE BETTER GET THIS GODADDY CRAP RIGHT! You've already lost 50% of the good faith that we as MT clients have.
Suggestions for new host to follow on next post.
zOrg.
I still, to this day, get calls from GoDaddy even though my last domain (which was blocked from being transferred for many months) left their hands last year.
No way am I ever going to trust them, or any company they own again.
And that 88% of their "technical audience" will like the GoDaddy purchase?
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/15/virb-spins-out-of-media-tem...
Visit http://www.poundhost.com and use voucher code MTREFUGEE at the checkout to get your discount.
Contact us: sales@poundhost.com ^RM
If there is anything thats as easy to cruise through and still reliable, I'd love to hear about it.
As a long time MT customer (and beta tester), good luck guys! Despite the general sentiments regarding GoDaddy I hope it works out and provides the extra juice for whatever is on the horizon.
Any recommendations on a host that offers similar quality/features to Media Temple's Grid/Shared hosting?
Specifically:
* About $20/mo
* An Easy to Use Dashboard
* The Ability to Reasonably Handle Traffic Bursts
* Decent Support
And, of course, not owned by GoDaddy.
I use them for a few sites and like their vibe and offerings. It's mostly pay-per-traffic I think. The dashboard isn't really a dashboard, more of a set of config screens. I find it intuitive but may not be what you're looking for.
You can easily set up an account and transfer sites over.
- AWS S3/Cloudfront (for static sites)
Early this year I already migrated 2 DV accounts due to poor customer service, now happily hosted Linode. Now I'll move 2 GS accounts for family and a close friend, but this is no Linode solution.
It's hard to say which hosts are similar because MT is a hybrid between shared/cloud. I don't know any other hosts which have a similar mysql grid container that scales (except maybe Amazon RDS).
As far as dashboards most use cPanel or Plesk. If you don't like those, the field gets a lot smaller.
Their impossible interfaces, distasteful advertising, dark patterns regarding renewals and addon services, parking domains, and support for massively oppressing SOPA legislation all combine to make an absolutely awful brand image.
You've pretty much just destroyed the quite nice reputation (mt) had as a solid, premium hosting provider.
Whether it's your advertising, your support for SOPA, the check-out maze, or the ex-CEO killing elephants - it's a brand that many informed consumers have chosen not to do business with.
I'll be canceling my MT hosting as soon as possible.
I'll be honest, from the outside looking in it looks like MT has sold out to cash in.
Surely you were aware of their reputation and their standing in the development community? I have to ask, how much did you consider what the reaction to this news would be before you signed on the line with them?
However, I think trying to spin things as "everything at (mt) will be the same... only better" is a bit of a disservice to the tech community you are trying to reach out to, which is inherently more savvy about the reasoning and justification behind the acquisition itself.
In short: No company ever sets out to acquire another company to just keep things the same.
I do not doubt that in the short term, not much will change. But starting within the next year or so, there is no doubt in anyone's minds that the combined leadership team of GD and (mt) will begin to capitalize on business, product and technological "synergies" to help increase the bottom line.
That's not a knock against you, GD, (mt) or anyone. That's just business.
But what does that mean for all of your existing (mt) customers?
GoDaddy's modus operandi of profit maximization through questionable-at-best marketing practices, minimizing costs in customer and technical support, and taking any short cuts possible even at the detriment of the customer, does appear completely at odds with the high value of support and refined products that (mt) had prided itself over the years.
So the $400M question (or however much the acquisition was for) is: can these vastly different approaches of your business models be reconciled at all? Or will one way end up "winning out" over the other way? And if it's the latter, who will end up "winning out"... the GoDaddy way, or the (mt) way?
I do apologize if I come up to some of my own conclusions ahead of time, but I hope you guys can prove me wrong. But as I am now an outsider looking in, it ultimately won't make too much of a difference to me -- I actually have been in the process (and am nearly complete) in moving all of my clients off of GoDaddy to AWS (for completely unrelated reasons, mostly dealing with pricing).
But as someone who had been a customer for over 8 years and as someone who had been an advocate for (mt), I couldn't help from having the feeling of "whew, I just dodged a bullet" after hearing this news.
1. The spin isn't really intended. GoDaddy is a huge fan of our services, and they intend to keep it independent so that our team can improve on what we currently have. We'll also be able to hire better people (not putting our team down), but it's always been the motto here to hire people that are smarter than us.
2. Existing customers- nothing is changing. Seriously. Prices aren't going up, control panel isn't changing, and we're not going to be emailing you every day.
3. Our team said yes to this merger because they like the direction their new team is taking. If we can inject some of our flair into what they are doing, even better. In the end though, you aren't going to see a combination of the logos.
4. "winning out" - If i could predict the future, I'd be traveling the world comfortably right now. :) I've been here for three years now, and I trust that things aren't going in that direction.
I appreciate the concern, and we're impressed that so many people care (even if sentiment sways negatively). We're not here to ride our horses into the sunset with bags of money draped to our saddles, we're here to compete in the hosting space. We have always been known for our stellar service, and we are ready to be known for a stellar product.
I know MediaTemple is a good company and wouldn't sell to GoDaddy without reason, so hopefully you can provide some solid justification for staying with you. The current FAQ/blog post don't address GoDaddy's toxic reputation in the tech community at all.
"They have overhauled their leadership team and attracted tech talent from the best-of-the-best. We love 'the new GoDaddy' that CEO Blake Irving and his team have created, especially their new approach with advertising, product focus and UX." -- http://weblog.mediatemple.net/2013/10/15/faqs-about-the-goda...
GoDaddy appears to be a very different company than it was a year ago, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
But just as some crimes aren't ever forgiven, I think few people will ever forgive GoDaddy (and rightly so).
A few things that I think is despised: - Support for SOPA - Constant upsales, borderline spam - Being against Net Neutrality - Support for PIPA - A marketing strategy which begins and ends with biki-girls
Complaints about bad performance, bad support and expense products are also common.[1]
As an extra bonus go Daddy's founder, Bob Parsons, goes to Africa every year to kill elephants who he says are ruining crops (others say he's a rich idiot American who likes shooting elephants for fun).[2][3]
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Daddy
[1] http://www.bbb.org/central-northern-western-arizona/Business...
[2] http://kottke.org/11/12/the-internets-go-daddy-issues
[3] http://abcnews.go.com/Business/daddy-ceo-bob-parsons-africa-...
When has life ever worked like that?
My referral link: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=1ecc21b66a25
Edit: Note, I don't run all of those sites on the same server, that'd be silly.
The only downside is that since their pricing is based on the number of domains/installs ($27 for a single domain/install), it'll get pricy for multiple small WP sites on a single account.
* WPEngine
* Linode
* Bytemark (Big V)
* Rackspace Cloud
* DigitalOcean
I've run other sites on DigitalOcean (superb) and BigV (been a client of theirs for a decade now - also superb).
There is no one web technology professionals hate more in the world than GoDaddy. I can't think of a vendor I despise more.
Also I'm an MT customer of 8 years and probably referred tens of thousands of business to MT over the last decade. Dead to me. Thats how much I hate GoDaddy.
I still respected MT for their independence, even if the service was unbearable for a few years there. You were just starting to earn a good reputation again, now you're right back in the dark days.
Have also heard mostly good things about Linode (exception[1]), but don't have personal experience with them.
[0]http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/sites/web-hosting/wordpress/
[1]https://blog.linode.com/2013/04/16/security-incident-update/
It tracks what people are saying about many of the big hosting providers on Twitter and analyzes what people like/don't like about them.
As far as anu_gupta's recommendations, I have data on 4/5:
Digital Ocean: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/101/digitalocean/
Linode: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/24/linode/
WPEngine: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/103/wpengine/
RackSpace: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/21/rackspace/
It's really cool but I don't think it's ready for primetime yet.
I want to be able to host static sites and WordPress all from one hosting account with great support and features. Seems like MediaTemple was the only service to offer that...
Congrats to Virb and the founders next chapter there! This is the first I've heard of it and it sounds like a pretty neat service.
And good luck the team left at (mt) for managing what is going to be quite a storm of negative sentiment and customer departures.
I am going to take the wait and see approach as I don't trust GoDaddy.
At somepoint I'll have to get down and learn how to properly secure a box and go with Digital Ocean I suspect - but site5 definitely hits the spot for me in the meantime.
Also, their support is fast and excellent.
And no, I don't get any sort of commission or are employed by them :)
Not that this discounts the scummery of GoDaddy.
The probably don't allow a WP network with multiple other sites CNAMEd to subdomains, which is how I'm set up. It's a little sticky to setup, but you have a free wordpress.org afterwards effectively, which is great for all my friend's and family's pet projects and mini sites.
Thanks!
Unfortunately, the second I noticed their motto (no bullshit) I realized I cannot use them for our clients. Sigh :(
By the way back in the day, before there was a godaddy and during godaddy's rise to "power" that crown (as a despired domain registrar) went to Network Solutions.
I wonder how many HN'ers are aware of that?
> Will you be sharing my personal & financial information with GoDaddy?
> Your personal and financial information stays securely in our system. No third-party vendors will ever have access to it, which has always been our practice.
Doesn't quite answer the question, so I'll have to assume (as other commenters did there too) that you will be sharing information with Godaddy, otherwise it would have been expressly denied. "Our" means the shared companies in this case.
> We are well aware of their past, but we're also well aware of what they've been doing to improve their business.
I'd still avoid combining my premium brand with one that used "godaddy girls" to promote their products.
NSFW. Can't believe I just had to write that.
http://i.imgur.com/z2P21XT.png
GoDaddy has offered us a ton of ammo with which to criticize them professionally, so let's not get into personal ad hominem attacks.
Secondly, maybe you've never seen the video but there's GoDaddy hats and shirts and shit all over it. He's the one who tied the business to it.
I also didn't realize GoDaddy was explicitly shown, so I stand corrected on all points.
However, Bob Parson is still chairman and the largest individual shareholder. I can see why people may not want to support him financially [based on principles, he's rich already].
Original price of a domain: free
Next price point a bit later $100: 2 years min ($50 per year)
Next a bit later $70: 2 years min ($35 per year)
Then came competition and prices dropped.
Little known fact: The first registrars that were accredited had to certify that they had no criminal record (any of the officers) and had to be a corporation and post $100,000 bond as well as other hurdles which were all put in place by Network Solutions to limit competition.
Out of NSI came Verisign which had to erect a "chinese wall" (iirc) in order to separate the "registry" from the "registrar". Verisign of course ended up selling off NS.
