Downdetector, Speedtest sold to IT service-provider Accenture in $1.2B deal

Source: Ars Technica

Background

Ziff Davis bought Ookla in 2014 for $15 million, according to a Reuters report. The publishing company said it expects the sale to close “in the coming months.”

Statement from Accenture

“By acquiring Ookla, we will help our clients across business and government scale AI safely and build the trusted data foundations they need to deliver the reliable, seamless connectivity that creates value.”
— Julie Sweet, CEO and Chair of Accenture

Current Accenture public‑sector clients include the US Air Force, the US Social Security Administration, and, recently, the US Department of State.

Speedtest and Downdetector Overview

• Speedtest – A popular tool for quickly testing Internet speed. Under Ziff Davis, it also serves business‑to‑business (B2B) applications. Ookla gathers, aggregates, and analyzes data for “billions of mobile network samples daily, which measure radio signal levels, network coverage, and availability, and [quality of experience] metrics for a number of connected experiences, such as streaming video, video conferencing, gaming, web browsing, and CDN and cloud provider performance,” according to Ookla’s methodology guide. B2B customers include telecommunications operators, regulatory and trade bodies, analysts, journalists, and nonprofits.

• Downdetector – A monitoring tool that reports the status of online services. It is frequently cited by media when discussing the availability of websites, apps, banks, and more. The Downdetector Explorer product helps businesses detect outages, with customers ranging from streaming services and banks to social networks and communication service providers.

Potential Impact of the Acquisition

If the acquisition closes, Accenture plans to continue operating the Ookla business “as it operates today,” according to an Accenture spokesperson quoted by Ars Technica. The firm will likely use data from Speedtest and Downdetector to inform its clients, while individual users may be subject to a new privacy policy and any other changes Accenture implements.