On Sept. 1, WordPress management company, ManageWP was acquired by GoDaddy for an undisclosed amount. ManageWP, which will remain entirely platform independent as part of the acquisition terms, first launched in 2012 and currently manages more than 25 million WordPress sites.
Why GoDaddy?
According to ManageWP, the pricing model and features will stay the same, however, by partnering with GoDaddy the company will be able to offer a hosting service. The deal will make it easier for the Serbian company to stay connected to Silicon Valley.
“This is the second largest tech investment in Serbia (after Microsoft) and will mean a lot to the startup community over there,” said ManageWP founder Vladimir Prelovac. “It is really hard to access the Silicon Valley knowledge and experience when you are in Eastern Europe and I am very happy that some of it will now be available to young people in my country.”
ManageWP plans to take advantage of the translating power of GoDaddy to make the product more accessible.
It is unclear if this acquisition points to a more developer-focused future for GoDaddy, though it would seem like a plausible move for the company. The GoDaddy announcement shed some light on the motives behind choosing ManageWP.
“…the acquisition of ManageWP demonstrates the company’s continued investment in WordPress, and expanded support for the web designers and professionals who use it,” the announcement said. GoDaddy now provides one place for web developers and designers to manage and maintain all their WordPress sites easily and efficiently, and to generate new recurring revenue streams to grow their businesses.”
GoDaddy Pro users will be able to access ManageWP features in the next few months.
Why ManageWP?
With the merger, GoDaddy clients will have access to some of ManageWP’s premium features for free.
“What you can expect is to see tighter integration with GoDaddy WordPress hosting product (the managed WordPress hosting product is really good) and GoDaddy Pro program aimed at website professionals,” the announcement said.
According to the announcement, all 30 ManageWP employees agreed to join GoDaddy and will continue to work for both companies. Prelovac will move to Sunnyvale, Ca. to shape the future of the partnership.
For fans of the ManageWP.org, it will remain exactly the same.
The Future
The big question is, what does this mean for the future of MangeWP? As stated before, pricing and features will remain the same. In the announcement, Prelovac laid out the roadmap for the rest of the year:
- September: Automated Security Check
- October: Automated Performance Check
- November: Automated Client Report
- End of year: Public API that allows you to remotely access the ManageWP dashboard
These goals are the same, but now the company will have more support in executing them.
Community Reaction
The deal feels similar to when Media Temple was acquired in 2013, in which the reaction from the community was quite mixed. Community members took to the comments and Twitter over the weekend to talk about the merger, and some were not excited.
Whoa, GoDaddy bought out ManageWP? Iiiinteresting. https://t.co/rFWnJvaFxy #wordpress
— Rachelle Wise (@WiseArts) September 6, 2016
BIG #wordpress news! GoDaddy has acquired @managewp https://t.co/WjzvKBIn3a Great news for ManageWP. Real pity about the GoDaddy part though
— Mark Theron (@marktheron) September 6, 2016
Not pleased with this news, but I love @managewp so I will hang with them and hope for the best. #ughhttps://t.co/Oojq5ky93w
— Karen Dec (@brightgdesigns) September 3, 2016
Prelovac wasn’t surprised by the negative comments but is confident that ManageWP can prove them wrong.
“Some people are upset and skeptical and they have every right to be given GoDaddy’s past reputation. But we waged carefully on this and it is upon us to prove them wrong,” he said. “But all emails I’ve been getting from our long time customers and friends has been overwhelmingly positive.”
It will take time to see how the changes take hold and what both companies will look like moving forward.
“GoDaddy is not here to ruin ManageWP, ManageWP is here to help improve GoDaddy,” Prelovac said.
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