Pair Networks and Linode Acquired
Pair, in 2018:
Today, Liberated Syndication, Inc. (LSYN), the Pittsburgh-based podcast hosting network, announced that it has closed its acquisition of pair Networks, Inc.
You can read the press release here.
Akamai, the company you probably mostly think of as a content delivery network but that also offers security and edge computing services, today announced that it has acquired Linode. The price of the acquisition is $900 million, with Akamai expecting Linode to add about $100 million in revenue for its fiscal year 2022.
[…]
“The opportunity to combine Linode’s developer-friendly cloud computing capabilities with Akamai’s market-leading edge platform and security services is transformational for Akamai,” said Akamai CEO and co-founder Dr. Tom Leighton in today’s announcement.
Update (2022-03-09): See also: Accidental Tech Podcast.
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I just recently noticed that Pair was acquired, because I had been wondering why I was suddenly getting a lot of emails from them promoting various services over the past 6 months. I’ve been a customer with them since 1998 and they never ever sent me unsolicited email. Looks like the end of an era. I don’t host any active websites anymore anyway… so I’ll probably move my email addresses to FastMail or something, and find somewhere cheaper for hanging onto the domain names that I want to keep (but don’t currently use).
@Ben I noticed the same thing. I’ve been a Pair customer for 20 years or so (not for this site). I haven’t noticed a change in the service, however.
Yeah, the service still seems solid. But then again they haven’t really kept up with the market and their offerings / prices seem really stingy nowadays. It’s been about a decade since I’ve really noticed any significant improvements… like they kinda gave up trying to be competitive. I just moved my email to FastMail (seems nice) and I’ll probably move my domains over to NameSilo since their renewal price is 40% cheaper than PairDomains. Probably should have done this 8+ years ago…
@Ben Yeah, their pricing is not great these days, and bandwidth is stingy. Features are not really changing. It suits me because I have an archived site there and don’t want a lot of change that could potentially break things. FastMail is good for e-mail.
I have been with Pair about 15 years and have been very happy with the level of tech support for multiple VPS hosts. The SSH access is important as we run code on our server that we must compile on the server. I hope the new owners don't mess up a good thing.
FWIW, I had an issue with last year where my email was suddenly inundated with spam, and while Pair did reply to my request for help, they ultimately couldn’t really tell me what I needed to do to configure their SpamAssassin to reject the specific type of spam emails that were getting through their filter. I feel like that’s a basic thing that all email providers should have now.
Looks like I’ll be moving my domains to CloudFlare as their pricing for renewals has no markup so it’s 50% what Pair charges. It’s probably my fault for not paying attention and having my domains on auto-renewal for so many years but I was astounded at the prices that Pair is charging now. It’s a LOT more than it used to be. Their renewal prices aren’t competitive at all, when in the beginning I think they were only $1-2 more per year than the cheap places. Now it’s almost $20/year for .com/net/org! My inattention has probably cost me half the price of a new MacBook Air over the years…
I see a press release circulating today titled "Libsyn Announces Sale of Pair Networks, Leadership Transition". The supposed buyer (Your Online) has a matching press release. No blog posts or tweets from Pair or Libsyn about it (which doesn't inspire a lot of confidence).
> The divestiture of this non-core division will simplify our Company
Libsyn never seemed like a good fit.
