What's in a name? Lots.
One of the unpublicized tidbits that was part of Acclivity’s acquisition of MYOB US, Inc was our contractual obligation to cease using the MYOB brand within two years of the deal. “Huh?”, you say? Let me explain.
There’s no subtext here. Acclivity continues to have a great relationship with MYOB Ltd (now our distributor for AccountEdge/FirstEdge in Australia and New Zealand). But if we’re going to separate as companies, each free to run their business with complete autonomy, it only makes sense that we disentangle the brands. One could argue, it makes less sense for the customers.
First, a history lesson.
MYOB was born as a product circa 1989 and was developed by a variety of owners through the years. BestWare, Teleware, Data-Tech – all corporate brands secondary to the MYOB product. In the 90s, Craig Winkler and Data-Tech, a wildly successful Australian distributor, bought the product outright and went public (in AU) choosing to name the company… MYOB. A brand they’ve built to be a top five brand in Australia.
Over the years in the US we’ve launched Premier Accounting, Accounting Plus, PLUS, AccountEdge, etc. But regardless, the software has consistently and overwhelmingly been known simply as: MYOB. Old habits die hard.
Allow me to play (unqualified) teacher for a moment. There are two branding approaches: the branded house and the house of brands. The branded house carries the umbrella/overarching brand across all products and services. Dell is a branded house. They make many different products, but you’ll usually refer to the product as a Dell. A house of brands is precisely the opposite. Proctor & Gamble is a classic example. You probably know them for Crest, Pringles, Folgers, but not so much for Proctor & Gamble. Up until now, MYOB in the US has been a de facto branded house. People refer to both our company and our products as MYOB. How do we transition away from that?
Yes, you’ll start to see more mentions of Acclivity, but that’s not the answer. That’s not recognizing the relationship we have with our customers, who use AccountEdge (as an example) as their Mac accounting software of choice. What you’ll see is more of an emphasis on the product you use, not the company you’re doing business with. Not dissimilar to how we've approached Checkout.
The bottom line: we know that inside our ivory tower we tend to obsess over things that our customers might find trivial. Sometimes these obsessions feed into great ideas or crises averted. Sometimes not. But we recognize we’re fortunate to have thousands of customers who have been loyal to MYOB for more than a decade and we’re not minimizing how we handle this transition. We’ve all seen how cavalierly companies (eg banks) change brands like they change tires, which often results in customer relationships that begin to feel disposable. So bear with us over the next couple years, and let us know if we’re making any mistakes, but rest assured we’re still the same people making the same software.