Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), 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.
Modern digital experiences, including virtual environments like the metaverse, are created through the convergence of media, entertainment, technology, ecommerce, financial services, and online games. Akamai has been a key partner to the world’s leaders in these industries for decades by powering and protecting applications in today’s multi-cloud, multi-platform world. Together with Linode, which has made it simple, affordable and accessible for developers to consume cloud computing, Akamai will become the world’s most distributed compute platform, from cloud to edge.
“The opportunity to combine Linode’s developer-friendly cloud computing capabilities with Akamai’s market-leading edge platform and security services is transformational for Akamai,” said Dr. Tom Leighton, chief executive officer and co-founder, Akamai Technologies. “Akamai has been a pioneer in the edge computing business for over 20 years, and today we are excited to begin a new chapter in our evolution by creating a unique cloud platform to build, run and secure applications from the cloud to the edge. This a big win for developers who will now be able to build the next generation of applications on a platform that delivers unprecedented scale, reach, performance, reliability and security.”
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.”
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.
For fiscal year 2022, the acquisition of Linode is anticipated to add approximately $100 million in revenue and be slightly accretive to non-GAAP EPS by approximately $0.05 to $0.06. Akamai will provide additional details on Linode, along with Q4 and year end 2021 financial results and full year guidance on its earnings call today, February 15, 2022, at 4:30 p.m. ET.
NB: SoylentNews is hosted on Linode servers.
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Akamai Linode now offers Kali Linux instances:
Kali Linux is a Linux distribution designed for penetration testing or -- yes -- hacking. This Debian-based Linux is a security worker's favorite distribution. And, now Linode, which recently became part of Akamai, is offering Kali as a supported distribution.
With Kali on Akamai, you can test and secure your production systems.
[...] For example, while you can add open-source penetration testing tools to any Linux distro, you must then also set up and configure these tools by hand. Kali comes with these tools already optimized and ready to run.
Linode is working with Kali on further documentation on how to best use their combination of cloud and Linux.
I really hope somebody has thought this through properly.
Previously:
Akamai to Acquire Linode
Call Us Immediately if Your Child Uses Kali Linux, Squawks West Mids Police
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 16 2022, @12:55PM (1 child)
Another once solid hosting service bites the dust. Are there any good alternatives?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 16 2022, @01:15PM
How do they bite the dust? The Linode services are staying, right?
I have one personal server on Linode, one on DigitalOcean, and one on Ramnode. Ramnode has the most awkward admin interface through the web but you could get cheap VMs with HDD storage. So instead of $10/month for 2GB of RAM and 50 or so GB of SSD storage at most providers, it was $10/month for 2GB of RAM and 500GB of storage at Ramnode.
I think it's fascinating that Linode and DigitalOcean are copying AWS S3 and EBS APIs for storage. I wonder if, twenty years from now, most infrastructure providers are offering a big set of AWS-compatible options.
(Score: 2) by rcamera on Wednesday February 16 2022, @01:14PM (1 child)
linode has been pretty good for the past decade+. hopefully they'll start offering annual payment plans again... they removed that as an option a while back "due to customer demand". because we all said "hey - i demand you no longer offer an annual plan". or something.
/* no comment */
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 17 2022, @02:11PM
I am fine with that. 2 year, 5 year and 10 year plans are much better options.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 16 2022, @01:59PM
"consolidation" and "developer friendly" don't seem to go well together.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Wednesday February 16 2022, @04:05PM
I assume, this shouldn't harm SoylentNews? Or just too early to tell.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 16 2022, @08:49PM (5 children)
Now there is a company that used to be hot, but has pretty much been invisible the last 20 years. Back then you saw Akamai as much as you do Cloudflare now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 16 2022, @11:22PM (1 child)
Akamai is still huge. The reason you don't hear about them anymore is because you are not their target customer. They don't care about hobby sites or personal pages, they go for big business and government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 17 2022, @12:21AM
No shit, sherlock. As if Cloudflare cares about your porn hosting business either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 17 2022, @03:24PM (2 children)
> Back then you saw Akamai as much as you do Cloudflare now.
Q. Does this imply that Akamai doesn't screw up very often, and thus doesn't make the news?
(I don't know the answer, maybe someone here does?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 17 2022, @04:17PM (1 child)
As an observer, I would say that Akamai has probably rested on its laurels from the early years of this century, while firms like Cloudflare have been more agile and able to base their "hardware" on the now ubiquitous cloud platforms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18 2022, @01:57AM
Akamai has not rested on its laurels, it just doesn't compete in the small space anymore because they don't need to compete there. Once you're big enough in your requirements, they are easily top 3 in features and cost.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Thursday February 17 2022, @02:33PM (1 child)
I understand that breaking news sometimes precedes the ability to find good independent coverage.
That said, I’m a little disappointing that we’re publishing a press release here as if it were a news article. The summary is a verbatim pull from the press release, completer with gushing tones.
If the press release is the only source, would prefer to see it linked and quoted more sparingly, with language like “Akamai claims the merger will X” instead of “The merger will X!”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18 2022, @02:15AM
The commenters will deliver the appropriate doom and gloom effectively.