I just found out about a company called Endurance International Group, which is the parent company of many smaller hosting providers. EIG owns more than 50 brands, primarily as a result of acquisitions, including some well-known ones like HostGator and BlueHost, and continues to operate them under their original names. What makes this really suspicious is that websites for EIG-owned providers don't disclose their parent company, as if they operate on their own, suggesting that EIG is intentionally trying to stay hidden. From what I've read, EIG hosting has a reputation for being unreliable to say the least. It's scary to find out that a massive corporation of this sort has eaten up so many different hosting and domain companies, and I'm worried that it could end up taking Linode as well.

Is there any possibility that Linode will be acquired by EIG in the future? If you're a Linode employee, what do you have to say on this? I don't want to see this to happen to such a trusted, reliable VPS provider...

--DragonLord

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Umm, no? Caker has shown little interest in selling the company (which is private, and can only be bought if it desires to be), and even if he wanted to, why would that one random company be a prime candidate? Linode is nothing like any of that company's existing holdings.

While Linode isn't small by any means, EIG has acquired fairly large and well-known hosting providers, as I've mentioned above. What makes Linode different than the EIG providers? EIG seems to force their subsidiaries to stay silent about the acquisition. When EIG acquires a company, it lets things stand for a year or so, then starts migrating servers to lower-quality, higher-density hosts and datacenters and lays off employees. The result is that performance and reliability degrades and customer support becomes poor--yet there is no indication that the acquisition even happened in the first place.

My main concern lies in whether Caker will be seduced into selling off Linode to EIG. I doubt he's going to allow it, but the possibility is very real nonetheless. I'm pretty sure he's going to let the community know about it if he gets a bid from EIG.

--DragonLord

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Troll.

-Chris

How is this trolling? I apologize if this is the case; it is not my intent to troll.

--DragonLord

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If a sale is on the horizon, you as a customer wouldn't hear any of it in advance, during or even after. This is especially given that Linode is an unlisted company and is not big enough to bring up any mention of anti-trust or anti-competitive law. Sales of private businesses are usually accompanied with NDAs that disallow any public discussion.

Also, I don't think caker is easy to seduce.

Out of curiosity: why are acquisitions of private companies held under NDA?

--DragonLord

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So that you don't discover the secret truth: all tech companies are owned by <redacted>.

- Les

There are many reasons why buyers or sellers insist that an NDA be signed. It could be to prevent a run of customers, prevent competitors from picking up on a strategy too early and implementing something to counter it, prevent another bidder from appearing with a higher price, etc.

Well, I am not familiar with the M&A process, so sorry if my previous post shows apparent ignorance.

--DragonLord

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To expand on the OP's original question - is there any possibility that in the near future, donuts will be made square instead of round? I like round donuts but I'm not sure the square corners would be any good, so I'm hoping the answer is no.

Any Linode staff willing to confirm or deny that possibility?

//my magic 8 ball said future cloudy try again - I'm not sure if that's a yes or a no//

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Either provide enough details for people to help, or sit back and listen to the crickets chirp.
Security thru obscurity is a myth - and really really annoying.

I think I've realized my mistake here. This is too speculative a topic to discuss constructively. Besides, consensus on this topic is that such an acquisition is unlikely to happen in the near future. It may be best to close this thread.

--DragonLord

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Generalizing here. It's a valid question for every business to ask of their suppliers, as it has the potential to affect one's business. Unfortunately (IMHO) this is mostly uncontrollable risk. It's a risk that you can mitigate, however. The only real way I can think of is to add some grandfatherable clauses, which could include things like continuing to maintain a minimum level of service, delivery, cost, etc, or making it so you can quickly change suppliers.

Specifically in the case of Linode: Well, you should probably trust Linode's board and shareholders to have your best interests at heart.

Oh please, these "square donuts" rumors have been flying around for years. Read my lips (once they're done eating this round donut): there will be no square donuts (square donuts will never fit over round unicorn horns).

Actually, square donuts will be our next service offering. We hope that these Linuts will give us a competitive edge in the donut market.

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