Daily Network Monitor

If experience is the name, we use to describe our mistakes then Ipswitch and specifically the WhatsUp brand has gained lots of experience in the past 2 years. In 2005, after nearly a decade of building a brand with the name WhatsUp Gold that is still the envy of product competitors of all sizes, Ipswitch changed the product name to WhatsUp Professional. While sales increased dramatically and usage skyrocketed, the emotional attachment experienced with WhatsUp Gold name did not ring true for the name Professional.

The 17th century English Statesman George Savile wrote, “The invisible thing called a Good Name is made up of the breath of numbers that speak well of you” Our customers did in fact speak and we have listened. After two years of the Professional name, WhatsUp is being relaunched in 2007 as WhatsUp Gold and audiences from external users to internal developers to the media at large could not be more pleased.

A colleague of mine from a previous company told me the story of the Coca Cola debacle and while I am not foolish, to think our situation was as large and public as the ‘new coke’ one – the attempt at parallels is humorous.
In 1985, after 99 years, Coca-Cola decided to switch to a new sweeter and smoother coke–more like its archrival, Pepsi.

This historic decision was preceded by a top-secret $4 million survey of 190,000 people, in which the new formula beat the old by 55 percent to 45 percent. What Coca-cola apparently neglected to take into account was that many of the 45 percent who preferred old Coke did so passionately. The 55 percent who voted for new Coke might have been able to live with the old formula, but many on the other side swore that they could not stomach new Coke. Coca-Cola’s announcement change provoked outraged protests and panic stockpiling by old-Coke fans. Soon, Coca-Cola backed down and brought back old Coke as “Coke Classic

I can’t say that we have made WhatsUp any sweeter unless the term “sweet” can be used to describe “more features, more power and easier to use”. I also can’t claim that resellers and end-users were stockpiling boxes of the old WhatsUp Gold in protest. I can tell you that our customers advised, even yelled that Professional was a bad choice and we listened. Welcome back WhatsUp Gold; the product is new but the name is classic.