Takes Different Approach to Apps — Go Daddy
Go Daddy develops its own hosted applications.
Go Daddy recently released a client relationship management (CRM) application. The news isn’t that Go Daddy launched a web-based CRM app. It’s that Go Daddy continues to offer more online software applications and could easily become a modest business hub for software-as-a-service.
A captive audience
As stated by Compete.com, GoDaddy.com is one of the top 400 trafficked web sites. Most visitors to the main GoDaddy.com site are modest business owners, sole proprietors, or the technology team for these clients. This audience is perfect for selling online apps such as CRM.
Go Daddy has positioned itself as the leading domain name and web hosting provider through low prices, and its online applications are priced to entry-level clients. Its CRM application is somewhat limited, but so is its price (under $10 a month for most people). Modest businesses have been priced out of competing solutions such as Salesforce. Salesforce is overkill and unnecessarily complicated for most users anyway.
Not a platform
A growing trend in the online app space is to offer a platform or hub for buying and provisioning applications built by third-parties. Salesforce.com’s AppExchange, for example, offers 800 applications ranging from sales & marketing to finance and human resources.
Go Daddy, on the other hand, builds almost all of its applications in house with a team of 250 developers. It offers everything from the aforementioned CRM to faxing, online calendars and online file management.
This doesn’t mean that Go Daddy couldn’t turn itself into platform. In fact, the firm offers Hosting Connection where application providers can offer certified applications to the firm’s web hosting clients.
Keys to Success
I have no doubt that Go Daddy can become a dominant force in the SMB online software market.
For now, clients who purchase Go Daddy apps access them through the same dashboard as domain names. I think there ought to be a second login that reaches apps, both for security reasons and ease-of-use. Go Daddy states it is planning such a system. Connecting to hosted apps must be very quick. Having used hosted CRM solutions in the past, I realize the need to login and find data quickly when the phone rings. Accessing e-mail quickly is notable, too. Ever wonder why Google has a separate login interface for all of its applications? You need not login and then click around to find what you’re looking for.
It will be interesting to watch where Go Daddy moves in this market and if it can unseat some of the existing players.
