(mt) Media Temple was just acquired by GoDaddy, one of the best hosting companies that both graphic designers and web designers love to use and one of the best around taken over by what is known as one of the worst hosting company that ever existed.
I received an email a few minutes ago from Demian Sellfors, co-founder of (mt) Media Temple, announcing that the company has just been acquired by GoDaddy. The company posted an FAQ on their site further explaining their decision to join forces with GoDaddy.
The deal came as a complete surprise to me, I literally let out a big “WTF!?” given GoDaddy’s reputation as a cheap web hosting company with a terrible track record in customer support.
Demian Sellfors, in his email, explained how Media Temple would be able to expand their operations and become a positive influence on GoDaddy.
There has been a lot of changes lately in GoDaddy, which has also redesigned its website and in the past few months has been acquiring other tech companies that they intend to use as resources/services for small business start-ups.
Media Temple being a positive influence may be a good thing for GoDaddy. Years of customer neglect and outdated hosting could use a little help from the hip (mt) crew. They could learn a lot from how Media Temple operates real professional web hosting while providing excellent customer support.
One of the more interesting FAQ questions on Media Temple’s site was “What about GoDaddy’s reputation in the tech community?”, to which (mt) answered;
GoDaddy has been transformed in recent months and is essentially a new company. If we did not like what we have seen, we would not have joined the GoDaddy family. 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.Media Temple
I use GoDaddy for some of my domains and is also an existing (mt) customer where I still keep a few sites running. I left Media Temple’s (gs) Grid in 2008 when I moved to Slicehost, which has since been acquired by Rackspace, before moving on to Webfaction.
Both companies have their fair share of strengths and weaknesses and it would be interesting to see how this all plays out in a year’s time.
