Akamai To Acquire Linode

"Akamai, which announced quarterly earnings today, also announced that they plan to acquire longtime Linux VPS host Linode for $900 million," writes Slashdot reader virtig01. From a press release announcing the acquisition: Akamai Technologies, the world's most trusted solution to power and protect digital experiences, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Linode, one of the easiest-to-use and most trusted infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform providers. [...] Under terms of the agreement, Akamai has agreed to acquire all of the outstanding equity of Linode Limited Liability Company for approximately $900 million, after customary purchase price adjustments. As a result of structuring the transaction as an asset purchase, Akamai expects to achieve cash income tax savings over the next 15 years that have an estimated net present value of approximately $120 million. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022 and is subject to customary closing conditions.

Christopher Aker, founder and chief executive officer, Linode, added, "We started Linode 19 years ago to make the power of the cloud easier and more accessible. Along the way, we built a cloud computing platform trusted by developers and businesses around the world. Today, those customers face new challenges as cloud services become all-encompassing, including compute, storage, security and delivery from core to edge. Solving those challenges requires tremendous integration and scale which Akamai and Linode plan to bring together under one roof. This marks an exciting new chapter for Linode and a major step forward for our current and future customers."

Congrats to Chris

[DRichardHipp]

I've been running sqlite.org on Linode since 2004. They've always provided great service. Congratulations to Chris (I'm assuming he is going to get an amazing payday out of this) and all the rest of the Linode team.

Congrats

[zoid.com]

Well good for them but I hope they don't screw it up. Linode is a great hosting company.

Re:Congrats

[Aighearach]

I was a Linode customer for 12 years, but when I finally shut off my service, they tried to fraudulently bill me for an extra month. When I contacted them to fix the problem, they lied about the service history and refused to acknowledge the date that service had ended. And when I escalated it, the manager repeated the same nonsense, without even looking up the details. Just blanket statements that I'm wrong and they're right. Over $4.

There is nothing to screw up. They either fix the company culture, or more likely, they don't. Meanwhile, I'm getting much better service at OVHcloud.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Aighearach]

Sure, it is a weird error, trying to bill me for the addons, IP addresses and something, after the end of service. The problem is that they wouldn't pay attention to how little sense it makes, and just repeated that they were right, and I was wrong.

Lots of people cancel phone service and don't have a problem. If they try to bill me I can do a chargeback. It sounds like you didn't research what to do, and went to the BBS instead.

despite having documented proof of cancellation of service once a month for 24+ months

What does that even mean?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Wow.

[jddj]

Now one of two things happens:

1. Akamai finally figures how to cure the eternal black-holing and ip-block rejection of mail from servers in Linode ip space.

or

2. Akamai gets ip blocked everyplace for whispering the word "Linode" in private.

I liked Linode pretty well, but G.D., I need my email to go out. That's why I split.

Re:

[Anonymice]

Best use an SMTP service such as AWS SES to send email. I can't remember if it's 1c per 100 emails, or 1c per 1000 emails, but it's incredibly cheap & you no longer have to deal with the headache of IP reputations & MTA configurations, which can be a real PITA.

Since I moved to SES, I've never had a single email drop into a recipients spam box.

Re:

[Mousit]

1. Akamai finally figures how to cure the eternal black-holing and ip-block rejection of mail from servers in Linode ip space.

It's not just e-mail. I use my Linode as a VPN, and I regularly encounter websites that likewise wholesale block Linode IPs. I'm among the many users that have made requests of Linode for years, asking them to set up some kind of web form or something to make it easy to let them know the places where they've been blocked, but so far Linode blithely continues not to make it easy. I just submit tickets to support instead, since Linode does actually (well, sometimes) try to contact at least the larger, maj

Wonder if Akamai will cure Linode's spam problem

[Indy1]

I doubt it, but one can hope. Linode has been a spam sewer for a VERY long time.

https://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/l... [spamhaus.org]

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Sad

[VonSkippy]

May i suggest Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" as their new theme song?

Spammers

[goslackware]

There's a huge amount of spammers & phishers using linode IPs.
Linode's IP space is all in ASN 63949. I've added IPs of that entire ASN to our email system's IP blacklist.
Now we don't get as much spam, but I still see linode systems trying to spoof our domain, per our DMARC reports, but SPF, DMARC, and DKIM prevent that.

Kudos, Congrats, and Big Tech

[bill_mcgonigle]

There's no world in which this sale isn't the right move.
Seriously, congrats on the reward for hard work.

On the flip side, I help out some people with virtuous ideas that are nonetheless not politically useful - this sale eliminates the clients who are at risk of being deplatformed, regardless of contracts or guaranteed.

There are other small providers who are happy for this tiny business.