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LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

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Re: LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

#261

Post by pastorhudson »

AGKyle wrote: post #214
bogidon wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried setting my parents up with 1Password. I realized that for someone without decent technical understanding it’s easy to get into weird states. E.g new account creation has a lot more friction than I would hope for. I don’t understand why the “generate password” button is divorced from the flow of making a new login. This was before 1Pass X so maybe things have changed, but my parents were so frustrated I doubt…

Thanks for the feedback. We've been doing a lot of user testing recently, so I'll run this by the team that do those tests. Really appreciate you taking the time to provide feedback here. You didn't have to but did anyway and it's appreciated. Thanks! Kyle 1Password Security Team

I’ll second the 50+ yr olduser testing request. I’m a very satisfied 1Password user/subscriber. It felt very intuitive to me until I setup my in-laws and other consulting clients who are small business owners.

The biggest pain point is creating a new login on iOS in safari. I understand the iOS limitations on browser hooks, but walking a user through creating a new login on iOS over the phone was a test of supernatural patience.

If they create the new login in the app instead of safari then they have to type a URL (or it won’t show up in safari) which for an older person who doesn’t really understand websites have addresses is like asking them to calculate the shortest superpermutation of n=7 “real quick”.

I believe the family plan for 1Password is fantastic. And a bunch of us have/will signup and put our aging parents on it. So a little user testing by older people where you are trying to help them over the phone would go a long way probably.

Re: LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

#262

Post by stevenjohns »

jedberg wrote: post #127
lifty wrote: post #7

Bitwarden is a nice alternative. And you can self-host the server part if you want. edit: LastPass is owned by LogMeIn, that's why I mention this alternative.

Does BitWarden do auto-fill on iOS?

Insofar that it works the same as any other third-party password manager on iOS, yes.

Re: LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

#263

Post by annoyingnoob »

dmix wrote: post #168
annoyingnoob wrote: post #163

In my experience, a private equity take over is the kiss of death.

It's easily the bottom of the barrel type recovery. Although historically private equity has been a net gain for struggling businesses that would otherwise go out of business. There was tons of anti PE stuff after the financial crisis and they received some of the earlier and harshest attacks from congress and other groups, but the data didn't support the idea they were some corporate raiding vultures and far more of…

>Unless there is some obvious value add consolidation scheme.

The kiss of death works in mysterious ways, the synergy is palpable.

Re: LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

#264

Post by coredog64 »

skrebbel wrote: post #89
x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #56

Off-topic, but can anyone tell me of an instance whereby a software entity was acquired by a VC firm and things turned out great?

I don't think VCs often buy companies but PE firms sure do. One example near me is NXP, a semicon business from Eindhoven (NL) where I live. Philips spun them out after loading them with debt,a PE firm bought them. Radical cost cutting, the usual, but they also accomplished a culture change (to some extent). As a former Philips department, the culture was very slow and bureaucratic, more akin to government than a for…

I’ve experienced a similar result. TPG bought a large stake in OnSemi. Initially they were going to flip it, so were focused on short term results. Eventually, they realized they had an opportunity to do more and loosened up the purse strings. ONNN bought LSIs fabs in Oregon and was able to refocus as a premium supplier rather than a race-to-the-bottom commodity provider.

Re: LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

#265

Post by ptx »

twobat wrote: post #166
lukeschlather wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows itself costs $200 or so. LogMeIn isn't worth 5 times as much as the operating system. At that price, it very quickly becomes cheaper to investigate alternatives like just using a Linux machine where remote management is a breeze, and there are tons of high-quality, free tools (with optional paid support contracts that are very inexpensive by comparison.)

Take a look at the pricing for Jetbrains products. 500€ for the first year only. I'm sure it has some features above "vim with syntax highlighting" but I can't tell which one costs 500.

The nice thing about their pricing is that it gets cheaper in the the second year and then again the third year. So from the third year on it's only 389 euro/year for the toolbox bundle that includes all products, so you'll be set for tools tools for any mainstream language.

Re: LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

#266

Post by ptx »

thekingofh wrote: post #202
MuricaFYeah wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would anyone want a password manager with this privacy policy? Why would anyone want a cloud based, proprietary, non-free, non-oss password manager is what I really want to know.

Because there's not a replacement that syncs well and is easy to teach your non-techie parents/spouse how to use to log into their shared accounts.

What's the problem with the built-in one in Firefox? It has optional syncing if you want it.

Re: LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

#267

Post by dmix »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #263
dmix wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easily the bottom of the barrel type recovery. Although historically private equity has been a net gain for struggling businesses that would otherwise go out of business. There was tons of anti PE stuff after the financial crisis and they received some of the earlier and harshest attacks from congress and other groups, but the data didn't support the idea they were some corporate raiding vultures and far more of…

>Unless there is some obvious value add consolidation scheme. The kiss of death works in mysterious ways, the synergy is palpable.

I would read this book

Re: LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

#268

Post by cushychicken »

coredog64 wrote: post #264
skrebbel wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think VCs often buy companies but PE firms sure do. One example near me is NXP, a semicon business from Eindhoven (NL) where I live. Philips spun them out after loading them with debt,a PE firm bought them. Radical cost cutting, the usual, but they also accomplished a culture change (to some extent). As a former Philips department, the culture was very slow and bureaucratic, more akin to government than a for…

I’ve experienced a similar result. TPG bought a large stake in OnSemi. Initially they were going to flip it, so were focused on short term results. Eventually, they realized they had an opportunity to do more and loosened up the purse strings. ONNN bought LSIs fabs in Oregon and was able to refocus as a premium supplier rather than a race-to-the-bottom commodity provider.

Yeah, On Semi has really turned it around in the last 5 years or so. They were on track to be a jellybean competitor.

Re: LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

#269

Post by als0 »

notoverthere wrote: post #224
thijsvandien wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A customer of mine had LogMeIn Pro just to access a single pc from a couple of phones every now and then. One day it suddenly stopped working. As it turned out, in the three years they had been using it, the price had hiked from about 100 EUR to over 350 EUR. Having no idea who charged them that much and what for, they reversed the credit card transaction. Since then, they've moved on to RealVNC. It's 1/10th of the p…

I'd recommend that your customer checks out [Chrome Remote Desktop]( https://remotedesktop.google.com/ ). It's completely free, simple to set up, and seems to perform way better than VNC. Plus no need to open firewall ports or worry about encryption and security – that's all handled for you.

I'd really like to use this but without a Google account. Hopefully this will be possible one day.

Re: LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity

#270

Post by anonuser123456 »

throwawaylmi wrote: post #148

Software Engineer here working on GotoMeeting (throwaway account). Not having gone through a private equity buyout in my career before, any ideas of what to expect/any recommendations of what to do now?

PE cares about value. If you bring a lot of value (e.g. work on revenue generating projects), you stand to do well.

Speculative R&D work is not highly valued, that's what VC does.

SG&A tends to get hit the hardest (HR/Finance/Legal etc.). Non core business functions get outsourced.

Look at the existing portfolio and see where you for in.

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