I don't think that will happen with Linode (but I certainly could be wrong). When Rackspace bought Slicehost, people didn't really know what the future was going to look like. At this point, we've seen AWS/GCP/Azure and Akamai wants to have their own "run your apps with us" system.
Unlike when Rackspace bought Slicehost, Linode probably isn't even the leader in its niche. That's probably DigitalOcean. Akamai probably figured out which of the two it could buy and DigitalOcean probably would have cost $4+ billion while Linode only cost $900 million. When Rackspace bought Slicehost, there were really two alternatives: Linode and AWS. AWS came with a lot of complexity and Linode was small.
If you're looking for a new Linode to pop up, you don't have to wait. Vultr, DigitalOcean, and tons more already exist and have for years. It's not 2010 where you don't have loads of options in this space. Go with Hetzner or OVH Cloud and get really cheap prices (I've found Hetzner Cloud to be really nice). There are so many places that will give you a VPS today. Heck, AWS will give you a Linode-like experience with Lightsail, right?
That's why I think Akamai wants to use Linode as a way to build something that will let them start getting into the AWS/GCP/Azure space. It's somewhat where Linode was already heading, albeit slowly. Linode started offering hosted Kubernetes, object storage, block storage, hosted databases, and load balancers. How long before they might have added a queuing system, an app-runner so you don't even need to think about boxes/load balancers, etc.
For the low price of $900M, they could jump-start that process at Akamai. Rackspace thought that the future was their high-touch, high-cost, managed services. Akamai probably wants to use Linode to get into the AWS space and with a separate brand, they can do it without as much risk to their mainline business. There are too many alternatives for Akamai to be deluded enough to think they can just ruin Linode and not like that $900M on fire. That wasn't the case when Rackspace bought Slicehost.
Akamai looks at Cloudflare's valuation with envy (and some contempt because Akamai has the larger edge network). Definitely agree Linode was purchased as a growth opportunity.
Unlike when Rackspace bought Slicehost, Linode probably isn't even the leader in its niche. That's probably DigitalOcean. Akamai probably figured out which of the two it could buy and DigitalOcean probably would have cost $4+ billion while Linode only cost $900 million. When Rackspace bought Slicehost, there were really two alternatives: Linode and AWS. AWS came with a lot of complexity and Linode was small.
If you're looking for a new Linode to pop up, you don't have to wait. Vultr, DigitalOcean, and tons more already exist and have for years. It's not 2010 where you don't have loads of options in this space. Go with Hetzner or OVH Cloud and get really cheap prices (I've found Hetzner Cloud to be really nice). There are so many places that will give you a VPS today. Heck, AWS will give you a Linode-like experience with Lightsail, right?
That's why I think Akamai wants to use Linode as a way to build something that will let them start getting into the AWS/GCP/Azure space. It's somewhat where Linode was already heading, albeit slowly. Linode started offering hosted Kubernetes, object storage, block storage, hosted databases, and load balancers. How long before they might have added a queuing system, an app-runner so you don't even need to think about boxes/load balancers, etc.
For the low price of $900M, they could jump-start that process at Akamai. Rackspace thought that the future was their high-touch, high-cost, managed services. Akamai probably wants to use Linode to get into the AWS space and with a separate brand, they can do it without as much risk to their mainline business. There are too many alternatives for Akamai to be deluded enough to think they can just ruin Linode and not like that $900M on fire. That wasn't the case when Rackspace bought Slicehost.