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Accenture to acquire Ookla

newsroom.accenture.com

161–170 of 186 posts

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has their own internal speed app due to privacy concerns.

And on macOS Apple has `networkQuality` on the command line which runs a speed test against presumably the iCloud servers

Gotta collect that data on how the services perform. lol

Snark aside, at least they have tight data controls and don’t sell that information.

But I don’t really have a lot of faith in the whole story and/or some of the management inside. Yeah there usually is always two sides to the coin. But tbh It’s too secretive. There has to be something there outside of simply “protecting the surprise.”

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#162
post #44

I am not sure why this old news is surfacing here today but I can give my 2 cents, since I sold speedchecker.com last year and were directly competing with Ookla. The main business is selling the data. You use Speedtest.net to troubleshoot your connection but metrics captured with the test alongside location data give telcos invaluable insights on where they should improve their networks. Telcos pay 6 figures annuall…

Telcos wanting to improve their networks is news to me. I always thought providing the bare minimum is basically their business model.

Providing the bare minimum when you're not is improving. ;)

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#163
post #126
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it took me 18 years to grow the user base , figure out entreprise sales strategy and exit. The audience here has never wanted to admit that the codebase doesn't really matter. Now that codebases can be created in a weekend, people are opening their eyes to this sentiment - the hard part is the sales, the code is easy.

Great code is still not easy. Choosing the right stack/libraries/billing and getting everything to work together (for cheap) is still something barely 10% of devs can actually realistically do. Sales is hard, yeah, but look at everyone claiming to be building something amazing and it ends up 9 months behind schedule or just being an buggy, untested version of something that already exists in the market.

Great code has never been the requirement of success.

Throughout my career no software that hits $100m annual revenue was born from great code. That’s 2 fortune 100 hi-tech companies with other medium sized companies with revenue close to $1B.

There was one company that had better codebase than the others, unfortunately that company struggles to hit $2M MRR…

Looking back, it was painful to admit that code quality was not how the company succeed: it was overall strategy and luck.

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is sound. It certainly takes a good deal of skill to create good code. And yes, good code makes it easier to create a better product. And yes it's easier to build a better company on a better product. But history is littered with "worse products" that won in the marketplace. It turns out that all the attributes you name are helpful but not necessary . Good marketing trumps good product. We see this over…

> So, assuming we can all make "good enough" code Your entire argument hinges on "good enough". Problem is: you can never know if something is "good enough", except in hindsight for those products that succeeded. I'm upvoting you because your comment is well made, and certainly common, even if it is nothing more than a tautology :)

But doesn't your counter point assume all products that failed were not good enough?

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#166
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fast.com is my go-to in the rare case I need to check network speed these days

I read a while ago that certain ISPs will optimize the traffic to Netflix's servers, and so when you run fast.com (which is my default, by the way), you get your Internet speed for watching Netflix, but not necessarily for other things.

The opposite can also be true. T-Mobile throttles Netflix and fast.com on my 5g mobile plan to be less than 5Mbps where Speedtest shows > 200Mbps.

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#167
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it took me 18 years to grow the user base , figure out entreprise sales strategy and exit. The audience here has never wanted to admit that the codebase doesn't really matter. Now that codebases can be created in a weekend, people are opening their eyes to this sentiment - the hard part is the sales, the code is easy.

> the codebase doesn't really matter Sigh. I’m sure the viewpoint from being in mergers and acquisitions is quite different (and to me, often comes across as quite callow). I’ve been a software developer for 35 years (closer to 45 if you include my pre-professional life, aka adolescence) and have deliberately stayed “on the tools” in my career with working in codebases and product development as I’ve found that is wh…

I think this perspective benefits from experience, the ability to step outside one’s self, see that the world is complicated, then focus on the thing you enjoy.

As much as I agree with you now, I also accept that younger me wouldn’t have!

Very well said.

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#168
post #44

I am not sure why this old news is surfacing here today but I can give my 2 cents, since I sold speedchecker.com last year and were directly competing with Ookla. The main business is selling the data. You use Speedtest.net to troubleshoot your connection but metrics captured with the test alongside location data give telcos invaluable insights on where they should improve their networks. Telcos pay 6 figures annuall…

ISP seems to give higher network priority to Ookla so I'm not sure how useful it is compared to actual experience.

Like all speed tests it should be considered the maximum you can achieve.

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#170
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it took me 18 years to grow the user base , figure out entreprise sales strategy and exit. The audience here has never wanted to admit that the codebase doesn't really matter. Now that codebases can be created in a weekend, people are opening their eyes to this sentiment - the hard part is the sales, the code is easy.

> the codebase doesn't really matter Sigh. I’m sure the viewpoint from being in mergers and acquisitions is quite different (and to me, often comes across as quite callow). I’ve been a software developer for 35 years (closer to 45 if you include my pre-professional life, aka adolescence) and have deliberately stayed “on the tools” in my career with working in codebases and product development as I’ve found that is wh…

> I’ve had sales people tell me to my face that they are the most important part of the business and the actual product or services is not that important.

Same here. This happened when I was 22 years old I didn't want to believe it.

BUT, I've seen far more shitty codebases win marketplaces with strong sales & marketing, than I've seen stellar codebases with shitty sales & marketplaces win marketplaces.

It's unfortunately really that simple.

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