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Accenture to acquire Ookla

newsroom.accenture.com

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Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#181

Post by vanviegen »

throwaway7783 wrote: post #164
vanviegen wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Well, at least the combination of code, marketing and luck wasn't good enough.

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#182

Post by smugma »

bruce511 wrote: post #132
anotherevan wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

> The players are not buying or selling the code.

Counter-point: many acquisitions are not for the code itself but for the engineers who designed and wrote the code. Acquihire is almost exclusively used to describe acquiring engineering talent that can… design systems and write code.

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#183

Post by vanviegen »

bruce511 wrote: post #173
vanviegen wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 :)

The bar for "good enough" can be set quite low. In general, consumers can be convinced to buy almost anything. And their resistance to good marketing is very weak. The problem with presenting good examples is that decades of sustained marketing is hard to overcome even with facts which are immediately obvious. Indeed good marketing has already negated those facts. For example smoking is objectively terrible and yet w…

I agree with most of what you're saying.

But was Google the best search engine when they got popular? Most definitely! Chrome the best browser? According to most, yes! When MySQL got popular, that was also due to it being the best free product out there at the time.

That is to say, a good product can easily be the key factor to growth. Especially in the critical early phase. But it'll have to be a lot better than the well-known alternative.

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#184

Post by adammarples »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #20
progforlyfe wrote: post #6

that's nuts, unless I'm missing something, it doesn't seem like those products are that mind blowingly complex... wow. Makes we want to try building my own for the hell of it. Downdetector in fact just seems to be a website catalog with essentially a guestbook and hit counter...

The valuation must be outside of the tech. Are there relationships or contracts Accenture is getting access to?

You don't pay to use ookla speed test, so your data is the product. That data gets sold.

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#185

Post by progforlyfe »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #169
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does.

Evidence?

I don't have any proof but it sounds plausible; they also have an interactive button (does not require any login), so it could be that they rank the interactive event higher, but still count plain views as something. I'd say it's a fair indicator at least on a basic level.

Re: Accenture to acquire Ookla

#186

Post by throwaway7783 »

vanviegen wrote: post #181
throwaway7783 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, at least the combination of code, marketing and luck wasn't good enough.

Sure, but the context here is only about code.
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