[Tech Thoughts] Speedtest, DownDetector proprietor Ookla’s sale to Accenture at a look

Whereas Ziff-Davis is not a family identify within the Philippines, its choices are. From Ookla’s Speedtest and DownDetector providers and past, this is what its sale to Accenture means.

Ziff Davis introduced on Tuesday, March 3, that it was promoting its Connectivity division to Accenture in a deal value $1.2 billion in money, topic to approval by regulators.

Whereas Ziff Davis isn’t a family identify within the Philippines — until you come from the cable TV space of ZDTV within the ’90s — among the choices in Connectivity division are. That division contains Ookla’s Speedtest and DownDetector manufacturers and providers, alongside different providers like Ekahau and RootMetrics.

In all, these varied choices present a spine from which common customers and enterprise clients can verify on the steadiness and power of their connections on-line.

What’s Ookla’s suite acquired?

For the common internet-addled consumer, SpeedTest and DownDetector are staples.

Whereas SpeedTest lets customers check their connection’s knowledge charge and latency, DownDetector lets customers verify in actual time if a given service is unavailable resulting from downtime reviews.

For extra superior customers, Ekahau offers instruments for customers to troubleshoot and design wi-fi networks, whereas RootMetrics displays cell community efficiency.

Accenture constructing for AI, hyperscaling for enterprises

Accenture, in its personal assertion asserting the acquisition of Ziff Davis’ Connectivity division, mentioned the intention of the acquisition was to “assist Communications Service Suppliers (CSPs), hyperscalers, and enterprises optimize the mission-critical Wi-Fi and 5G networks that energy their digital core” by offering knowledge and analytics for them.

In accordance with Accenture, Ookla’s checks are useful in offering the info wanted to make selections as synthetic intelligence improvement scales.

Mentioned Accenture of AI scaling initiatives, “the insights captured on the community, gadget, and software layers are important to reinforce fraud prevention in banking, good house analytics in utilities, and visitors optimization in retail. Ookla’s platform, which captures greater than 1,000 attributes per check, supplies the inspiration for these insights.”

Maintaining the enterprise going

Accenture reasoned out that within the time of AI brokers, customers will want steady, quick entry to the web to ensure agentic AI runs easily with minimal to no friction.

Buying Ookla’s varied providers goals to assist in that regard, because it has a ton of information — greater than 250 million consumer-initiated checks month-to-month, alongside what Accenture referred to as “managed drive, stroll and embedded testing choices” to higher outline the standard of service and the standard of expertise individuals and firms are getting from their connectivity options supplier.

Manish Sharma, chief technique and providers officer for Accenture, mentioned of the acquisition, “With the Ookla portfolio, we’ll provide end-to-end community intelligence providers important for AI-based transformation.”

“Speedtest and RootMetrics outline the expertise; Downdetector identifies incidents sooner; and Ekahau drives digital office transformation by way of superior WiFi. In an period of omni-channel and agentic entry, low-latency, zero-friction connectivity is a aggressive necessity, and these instruments give enterprises the ability to construct the high-performance environments they want,” Sharma added.

Whereas that informs their enterprise userbase, you may anticipate Accenture to doubtless maintain issues the identical for its frequent customers.

As an Accenture spokesperson instructed Ars Technica as regards the acquisition, it plans to function the Ookla “enterprise because it operates at present.” – Rappler.com