By Philbert Shih, theWHIR.com
January 20, 2006 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Web hosting companies will occasionally employ multiple brands to target specific segments of the market. But when an industry evolves or a company wants to adjust its focus, sometimes a new identity is needed.
Affinity Internet (affinity.com), which has marketed hosting under the HostSave, WinSave (winsave.com), ValueWeb (valueweb.com) and BigStep (bigstep.com) brands, recently unveiled the new Gate.com (gate.com) brand. In beta testing since December, Gate.com has already replaced the well-known HostSave, Affinity’s budget-priced Linux-based hosting line. HostSave’s counterpart WinSave, the low-cost Windows-based hosting line, will also be folded into the Gate.com brand, later this year. It is currently in beta testing.
HostSave and WinSave have been positioned as Affinity’s budget hosting brands since the late 1990s. But Affinity felt that the emphasis on cost savings failed to represent the true selling point of the brand, which is the technical prowess and reliability of the service, even at such an aggressive price point.
“We felt that the story wasn’t getting out there – the real value being delivered to customers – so we decided to launch Gate.com, which really brings that technology to the forefront,” says John Enright, vice president of marketing for Affinity Internet. “It’s the same aggressive price, the same platform, but there is much more of a story being told about the technology that is going on behind the scenes. We’ve been delivering a premium product at that $10 price point for the past several years and we just wanted to be able to tell that story in a bit more detail.”
The messaging of the Gate.com brand will cater to the developer audience. There is more discussion about the technology, network and clustered platform, which runs hosting on both the Unix and Windows platforms. “Developers need that information,” Enright says. “They are developing mission-critical applications and need to make sure that the apps they writing are going to function on the platform.”
Enright says another reason for the re-branding is the growing preference among developers for Web hosts that support both the Linux and Windows platforms.”It used to be that there was an advantage to segregating Linux and Windows,” he says, “but these days there are so many apps out there that require one platform or the other … that developers prefer to have one service that provides both platforms.”
Folding HostSave and WinSave into Gate.com, however, does not mean Affinity is planning to abandon the budget-conscious hosting customer, whether they are developers or not. The company plans to continue targeting that customer while it expands the scope of its offerings. Gate.com will still offer hosting for $10, and has expanded the line to include $15, $30 and $45 packages, as well as dedicated servers. HostSave and WinSave each offered only a single hosting plan.
“We’re very much focused on that $10 price point,” says Enright, “but we want to also provide a very competitive solution at that entry level price point, but then also provide solutions that help customers migrate upwards from there.”
Affinity says it will direct the less technically savvy customers to its ValueWeb brand. These customers, Enright says, are more “solutions-oriented,” they want a Web site, might need some Internet-based business services and don’t want to be bothered with the technology on the back end. “They are more interested in solutions,” he says. “Not necessarily the technology behind the platform.”
Affinity has owned the Gate.com domain since it operated the Cybergate Internet access service, so it didn’t have to go out and purchase what would likely have been a pricey item. The appeal, Enright says, is in its simplicity.
“It’s a short name and it also has a technology connotation to it. Having a name and URL that’s really easy to remember goes a long way.”
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