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GoDaddy Buys Media Temple

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Re: GoDaddy Buys Media Temple

#101

Post by akinder »

atourgates wrote: post #10
recusancy wrote: post #3

Media Temple's brand destroyed by one press release.

Now I'll be spending my morning creating a plan to transfer our clients (mostly small to medium businesses) that host on MediaTemple, to a new host. 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 like Digital Ocean and Gandi.net

Re: GoDaddy Buys Media Temple

#102

Post by vtbose »

antr wrote: post #83

If I were any of MT/GoDaddy competitors I would launch a campaign/discount to start attracting MT customers not happy with this acquisition.

Surprised that this is not happening quick enough. I know namecheap.com did this very well, with GoDaddy negative press a few years ago.

Re: GoDaddy Buys Media Temple

#104

Post by mikeho1999 »

mtMattNL wrote: post #38

I was going to post person by person, but I figured a general post with all the info would be a better option. So here it goes... 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 wa…

Matt, first of all, thanks to you and your team for posting in the comments on sites like HN, TechCrunch, and all the other sites where the news is starting to hit the tech community. I know it can't be easy to read so many critical comments against a company that I am sure has been a great place for you to work at.

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.

Re: GoDaddy Buys Media Temple

#105

Post by marveller »

mtMattNL wrote: post #59
nwh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the bit where GoDaddy is largely regarded as the scum of the Internet. 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.

We are well aware of their past, but we're also well aware of what they've been doing to improve their business. Check out our FAQ http://weblog.mediatemple.net/2013/10/15/faqs-about-the-goda...

I am so glad I have moved all my domains out of GD. Was recommending TM for my customer, now I have to tell them to move out of TM ASAP, sad.

Re: GoDaddy Buys Media Temple

#106

Post by scott_karana »

ebbv wrote: post #85
mtMattNL wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt from (mt) here. Sorry that you feel that way, but we assure everybody that it's a good thing. We're not making any major changes at the company, and we're going to have 10 times the resources to make better products.

When's your first elephant hunting safari planned?

I'm sorry, but what does an ex-CEO's personal hobby have to do with the way the business is run? I'm sure a shockingly high amount of other CEOs have had African safari and have taken elephants, distasteful as that may be.

GoDaddy has offered us a ton of ammo with which to criticize them professionally, so let's not get into personal ad hominem attacks.

Re: GoDaddy Buys Media Temple

#107

Post by rpicard »

atourgates wrote: post #10
recusancy wrote: post #3

Media Temple's brand destroyed by one press release.

Now I'll be spending my morning creating a plan to transfer our clients (mostly small to medium businesses) that host on MediaTemple, to a new host. 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 really like Digital Ocean.

Re: GoDaddy Buys Media Temple

#108

Post by mitchwainer »

anu_gupta wrote: post #14
thebiglebrewski wrote: post #4

I totally agree with @recusancy, this is the worst news I've heard all day...I absolutely despise GoDaddy and everything they represent. Who should I switch to? Just have some WordPress site hosted on MediaTemple mostly...

Depends on how much you want to pay, and exactly how much control you want, but one of these should sort you out. * WPEngine * Linode * Bytemark (Big V) * Rackspace Cloud * DigitalOcean

We just issued a $10 promo code today on Twitter for anyone that is interested in trying out DigitalOcean. Promo Code: DIVEIN10

Re: GoDaddy Buys Media Temple

#109

Post by jjoe »

izolate wrote: post #87
jjoe wrote: post #86

What about your CEO/co-founder Demian Sellfors? 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 m…

This is the most revealing part of the press release. The founders wanted to cash out. Let's not pretend this acquisition has everyone's best interests at heart. It only benefits GoDaddy and MT's founders, everyone else gets to witness the end of MT.

Not so coincidentally placed at the end of the FAQ. But I'm certain they've both sacrificed a lot throughout the years. That's almost 16 non-stop years of running MT. It's a well deserved break in my opinion.

Re: GoDaddy Buys Media Temple

#110

Post by harvestmoon »

uptown wrote: post #23
mtMattNL wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt from (mt) here. Sorry that you feel that way, but we assure everybody that it's a good thing. We're not making any major changes at the company, and we're going to have 10 times the resources to make better products.

What you may not appreciate is that the GoDaddy brand is toxic. 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 hosted on GoDaddy. Not only was it excessively slow at times, but it was not secure. I would occasionally have security failures and viruses installed on the website.
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