I reported recently on the merger of YourMembership and Affiniscape. The new company name is YourMembership, and not surprisingly, YourMembership has announced that all Affiniscape customers will be moved to the YourMembership platform. You can learn all the details here.
There’s also an interesting open letter from Rick Rutherford, co-founder of Affiniscape, that you can read here.
I’m impressed by how quickly YourMembership has made this move (i.e., announcing the change of platforms) and the transparency with which they are doing it. Very often when software companies merge, they pay a lot of lip-service to how they’re going to support both products for the foreseeable future. Most of us know it’s hogwash, so kudos to YourMembership for not playing that game.
I’m certain they’ll lose customers as a result of this move, as I’m sure they all understood when the merger was consummated. I think it’s unavoidable. But if you’re going to do a merger, be transparent about it, and you’ll likely keep more than you lose.
Wes, why is it a foregone conclusion they’ll lose customers? They are migrating to a better product and a financially sound company. How much would it cost a small state association to change AMS vendors? Who is a viable alternative ? Does the association have the resources to change ? A lot of Affiniscape’s customers, if not all, do not have an IT person on premise.
Lisa, thanks for your comment.
All of your questions make perfect sense, but business decisions are often made as much on emotion as logic. I’ve already talked with a couple of Affiniscape clients who said they will likely search for new solutions to compare to YourMembership before they make the switch. The point is, YM isn’t what Affiniscape clients bought, and so it’s very likely some will leave rather than switch. It may not make “sense” to you and me, but it will to them.