Neil Morgan, who leads marketing for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Omniture, comments Yahoo’s acquisition of IndexTools.

“This is a very late move by Yahoo! into providing a web analytics offering to its customers which Google and Microsoft have done for over a year. Clearly it will be focused on helping maximise their ad sales, so once again the market has lost an independent web analytics tool and their customers a unbiased way to measure their results. IndexTools always tried to compete as ‘good enough’ web analytics at a very low price, so presumably Yahoo! will simply give it away and curtail its development, not great news for IndexTools customers who have been paying for their service. The real question of course is if the Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo! goes through which ‘free’ tool will they give away first, IndexTools or Microsoft Gatineau?”

Neil made the comment to WebAnalysts.Info.

ShareThis

I’m very excited to tell you that one of the major web analytics vendors is being acquired by an Internet giant. Yahoo! is acquiring IndexTools. This is a testament to the hard work of Dennis Mortensen and the IndexTools team.

Dennis is the COO of IndexTools, but has, in my opinion, been acting like a CMO as well. It’s hard to find anyone with more frequent flyer points than Dennis. He has been to virtually every conference that matters, all around the globe, to spread the gospel of IndexTools.

Google has Google Analytics (Urchin), Microsoft has Microsoft adCenter Analytics (Gatineau), and Yahoo! will now have IndexTools (Yahoo! Analytics?).

The upcoming release of IndexTools Rubix is very promising, and I’m looking forward to see what will happen with it now.

Dennis will become Director of Data Insights at Yahoo! and a colleague of Bob Page.

I asked Dennis to comment the acquisition.

Why do you think that IndexTools and Yahoo! are a good fit?

There was a cultural, technological, and strategic fit from the very first meeting, which is very much needed in any acquisition. But more importantly, I think it makes sense as we (the Web analytics industry) now truly will be able have a decent budget split between people and technology — and that on an enterprise analytics level, almost to the extent of the 10/90 rule as preached by my good friend Avinash.

Will the acquisition affect your next release? If so, how?

Yes, we were just about to release IndexTools Rubix, which you have seen sneak peeks of, and that launch will of course be affected. I will be able to tell you much more about this later.

Are you going to change the name of your tool? Maybe Yahoo! Analytics?

Honestly, that hasn’t been decided yet. I personally think it would be more fun if we did. Perhaps to Mortensen Statistics. I do, however, not think that corporate marketing would approve that.

Are you going to release a free solution like Google and Microsoft have done?

I will tell you more about that later.

Will IndexTools still be based out of Budapest?

As you know, we have offices around the world and our R&D center in Budapest. We are indeed planning on keeping our R&D in Budapest.

Are we still going to meet you at most conferences about web analytics, e-business, and online marketing around the world?

Hell yeah! Probably even more than more before. First destination will be eMetrics in San Francisco.

Read more

ShareThis

Brian Clifton has left Google to return to Omega Digital Media, a company he founded in 1997.

His book about Google Analytics has now been released.

ShareThis