
LogMeIn Acquired by Private Equity - AznHisoka
https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/17/logmein-agrees-to-be-acquired-by-francisco-partners-and-evergreen-for-4-3b/
======
jmuguy
My old company used Logmein professionally to remotely manage 100s of
computers for many years before switching to ConnectWise.

They had a great product for a long time but some of the worse licensing
decisions I've ever seen. It went from being completely free to several
thousand dollars overnight without any additional features, support, etc being
offered. And meanwhile development was stagnant with only weird changes to the
UI and punitive changes to free users being rolled out.

We would have been more than willing to pay for licensing. Even in the end it
was the one product we found that could do some really cool stuff remotely
(like recover a frozen Windows system and reboot it into safe mode). But they
just handled the business side of things like complete idiots.

~~~
ceejayoz
Great product, hundreds of computers for professional purposes, and "several
thousand dollars" is a sticking point? Why?

~~~
lukeschlather
Windows itself costs $200 or so. LogMeIn isn't worth 5 times as much as the
operating system. At that price, it very quickly becomes cheaper to
investigate alternatives like just using a Linux machine where remote
management is a breeze, and there are tons of high-quality, free tools (with
optional paid support contracts that are very inexpensive by comparison.)

~~~
twobat
Take a look at the pricing for Jetbrains products. 500€ for the first year
only. I'm sure it has some features above "vim with syntax highlighting" but I
can't tell which one costs 500.

~~~
ptx
The nice thing about their pricing is that it gets cheaper in the the second
year and then again the third year. So from the third year on it's only 389
euro/year for the toolbox bundle that includes _all products_ , so you'll be
set for tools tools for any mainstream language.

~~~
twobat
Yeah, 900€ just for two years is nothing. And this is just for the IntelliJ
IDEA, not the whole pack. The standalone Office suite is 650€ for life.
Photoshop from Adobe is quite a lot cheaper (some variant goes for $120/yr).

------
lifty
Bitwarden is a nice alternative. And you can self-host the server part if you
want.

edit: LastPass is owned by LogMeIn, that's why I mention this alternative.

~~~
arsana
LogMeIn is remote access software. The LogMeIn refers to a local machine,not a
website.

~~~
lifty
Sorry, I should have been more clear and mention the LastPass relation.

------
mataug
This thread seems to be dominated by bitwarden recommendations, So I thought I
would list some of the other reliable options that I'm considering.

\- Keepass [https://www.keepassx.org/](https://www.keepassx.org/) |
[https://keepassxc.org/](https://keepassxc.org/)

\- Pass [https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/)

\- Dashlane [https://www.dashlane.com/](https://www.dashlane.com/)

\- 1Password [https://1password.com/](https://1password.com/)

\- Bitwardnen [https://bitwarden.com/](https://bitwarden.com/)

\- Lockwise [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/lockwise/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/lockwise/)

If you think there are other legit options out there please reply with links
to the project / product.

~~~
clickme_zsh
Lesspass [https://lesspass.com/#/](https://lesspass.com/#/)

------
x86_64Ubuntu
Off-topic, but can anyone tell me of an instance whereby a software entity was
acquired by a VC firm and things turned out great?

~~~
steveklabnik
Others have pointed out the difference between VC and PE, but I think there's
a _crucial_ thing missing from your question: turned out great _for whom_?

~~~
bduerst
SOP for PE's is to come in, cut costs, and improve the bottom line without
affecting revenue or service.

Customers typically aren't affected but employees are.

~~~
mbesto
> SOP for PE's is to come in, cut costs, and improve the bottom line without
> affecting revenue or service.

This is fundamentally untrue. Large CAP ($1B+ valuations) is notorious for
this, but there's about 5k PE deals per year and those deals are the
exception, not the norm, in terms of shear volume. They're great for headlines
though! (hello Toys 'R Us)

Most of them are about adding value through various means, one of those might
be cutting unnecessary costs.

------
AznHisoka
These guys must really be pessimistic about their future if they are accepting
a deal of $86/share. Their 52 week high was $96/share, and as high as
$120/share last year.

~~~
raiyu
From 2017 to 2018 they nearly tripled revenue, probably a reflection of the
price changes that many in this thread have complained about.

The problem is that since then their growth has completely stalled out and is
projected to be under 5% for both this year and next year.

While their revenue tops out over $1B their net profit is pretty slim.

Post acquisition expect to see a lot of cuts to improve cash flow as
operations are slashed across the board, and depending on how the acquisition
is funded it won't be a surprise to see the company burdened with a bunch of
debt.

Then PE will either try to return cash through net income, or more likely than
not relist the company after two - five years when the restructuring is
complete and the company has a more financially interesting profile, akin to
what happened with Ping Identity.

In an ideal world they will also try to increase revenue growth as well, so I
wouldn't be surprised to see some more price increases coming down the line as
well.

~~~
mmargerum
They blindsided us with a 300% increase. I'm very much looking forward to
getting off the service. They may have done very well in the short term, but
they destroyed to long term business.

------
mk99
They own GotoMeeting, Rescue Assist, LastPass and of course LogMeIn to name a
few. I use their GotoWebinar product. Zoom.us has been eating their lunch
lately ...

~~~
CobrastanJorji
Ah, shoot, I didn't connect this to LastPass. Thanks for pointing that out.

------
post_break
I cancelled LogMeIn because every year they raised prices. Started at like
$100 a year and over 5 years went up to over $1000 a year just to get into
around 10 PCs.

------
dang
We changed the URL from [https://investor.logmeininc.com/about-
us/investors/news/pres...](https://investor.logmeininc.com/about-
us/investors/news/press-release-details/2019/LogMeIn-Enters-into-Definitive-
Agreement-to-be-Acquired-by-Affiliates-of-Francisco-Partners-and-Evergreen-
Coast-Capital-for-8605-per-Share-in-Cash/default.aspx) to a third-party
article with a bit more background.

------
_bxg1
LogMeIn Hamachi was a pretty great way of setting up a LAN over the internet
for gaming. We used to play Minecraft on it all the time in college.

~~~
degenerate
Hamachi was created by Alex Pankratov. Once LogMeIn purchased Hamachi, they
ruined it with the following update ( _either purposefully or accidentally_ )
by making it no longer work with a large handful of older games. That sanfu in
combination with a more bloated UI, forced LogMeIn account, and a splattering
of useless features made it obsolete within a few months. It was the fastest
rise and fall of a piece of software I have ever personally witnessed. You can
read about the original Hamachi on the author's website here:
[https://swapped.cc/#!/hamachi](https://swapped.cc/#!/hamachi)

~~~
apankrat
Your recollection is off.

LMI bought Hamachi in 2006 and I was involved in the development until 2009.
Through that time there were no known issues with older games. Nothing was
broken. What was tunneled before was still tunneled the exact same way,
including IPX, IP4 broadcasts and multicasts. We did rewrite the client,
cleaning up all the cruft, separating the engine from the UI, adding
compression support and what not. It still wasn't fully integrated with the
LMI core and no LMI account was required. The UI was redesigned in-house,
without my participation, and while I didn't like the result, the original
look wasn't a pinnacle of design either :)

What happened after 2009 I have no idea. The devs I worked with were _really_
good, so if things broke, most likely it wasn't accidental.

~~~
degenerate
I remember the UI change being around the time most things broke for me, and
there were other users in the product forum with their various games also
having issues. Maybe those type of posts were always numerous, and I never
visited the forums before. For me the games that broke were Starcraft, Red
Alert, and a handful of non-internet games. Perhaps the forum/customer-support
tickets didn't make it down to you, but something had definitely broke around
the time the UI changed.

It's likely the issues were quickly fixed and I am remembering the gradual
post-2009 decline more vividly and blaming it on the time when the UI changed,
which was emotionally upsetting ;)

But thanks for posting your remembrance of the events, and creating Hamachi in
the first place!

------
throwawaylmi
Software Engineer here working on GotoMeeting (throwaway account). Not having
gone through a private equity buyout in my career before, any ideas of what to
expect/any recommendations of what to do now?

~~~
criddell
Has any private equity buyout ever helped anybody other than the PE
stakeholders?

~~~
ronnybrendel2
Dell was saved that way. But this here is different of course.

------
gnrlst
Serious question: how much will this impact LastPass? I get that a buy-out
creates some risk for the company's future, but is migration really required
in the next 6-12 months?

~~~
Kye
Private equity (PE) has a bad reputation for a good reason. I wouldn't jump to
migration immediately, but you should keep an up to date export in a secure
place. PE can take years to drive a company into the ground with debt.

~~~
ulkesh
I migrated to Bitwarden immediately and removed all content in LastPass and
deleted my LastPass account. My experience seeing companies sell out to
private equity firms leads me to believe I haven't made that rash of a
decision. For me, trust is usually immediately lost once a company changes
hands. And when it comes to password management like this, trust is
everything.

Honestly, I would have supported Bitwarden before had I known about it prior
to this HN post. I appreciate the content you and everyone else has provided
in this thread.

------
alex_lod
LastPass recently started deleting a secure note of mine after I’d edit it.
It’s been almost two weeks and their support team has done nothing but kick
the can down the road. I wonder if the acquisition has anything to do with
their very poor support quality.

------
chooseaname
A lot of discussion surrounding LastPass and alternatives, but what are some
actual LogMeIn alternatives that people like?

~~~
Krasnol
I use AnyDesk now as TeamViewer became annoying with their need to install and
things like disconnects every x-minutes. Didn't look back since.

~~~
sergiosgc
I switched from TeamViewer to AnyDesk too. Sensible licensing, protocol
compatibility between versions, Linux versions _and_ repositories... Fantastic
product!

------
jitendrac
I used to play cs 1.6 using hamachi, and it was unmatched at that time. Sad to
see the gradual downfall of project.

------
tcd
Keepass; open source, can store the file wherever you wish, isn't liable to be
acquired by a private entity since you can just build your own copy.

Use open source software wherever possible, it's just better that way.

~~~
rietta
Does it work to sync between Linux dev machine and iOS phone?

~~~
ruanmed
I use KeePass kdbx file synced in my Linux computer and Android smartphone
through Google Drive. For that I use Keepass2Android in my phone.

I just searched and there are also iOS applications that also provide easy
cloud sync, one of such is KeePassium[1].

[1] [https://keepassium.com/](https://keepassium.com/)

~~~
Mirioron
I'd like to add that if you end up syncing the password database through a
service like Google Drive then you should use a password _and_ keyfile on the
password database. Share the keyfile in a (more) secure way with your device
and don't put it anywhere like Google Drive etc. This way even if somebody
captures your password database and somehow gets your password they still
can't open the password database because it requires the keyfile.

------
annoyingnoob
In my experience, a private equity take over is the kiss of death.

~~~
dmix
It's easily the bottom of the barrel type recovery.

Although historically private equity has been a net gain for struggling
businesses that would otherwise go out of business.

There was tons of anti PE stuff after the financial crisis and they received
some of the earlier and harshest attacks from congress and other groups, but
the data didn't support the idea they were some corporate raiding vultures and
far more often turned around ventures in precarious positions.

But ultimately its not something you go to when they are going well. Unless
there is some obvious value add consolidation scheme.

~~~
annoyingnoob
>Unless there is some obvious value add consolidation scheme.

The kiss of death works in mysterious ways, the synergy is palpable.

~~~
dmix
I would read this book

------
greggman2
I don't understand how HN can complain about Google sucking up data and rarely
if ever mention LassPass's terms of service which basically flat out state
they share your info to marketers. Effectively they appear to be making money
by looking at all the sites you log into via LassPass. If you're using their
browser plugin I can only guess, given their Terms of Service, that they're
spying on all pages, not just pages you're getting a password via their
service for. Though even selling the info of which services you're using is
bad enough.

Sure, they have a free plan and so you are not the customer. Why do they get a
pass?

Note: I have no proof they are spying. I only have the fact that their TOS
points to their privacy policy and their privacy policy says they can collect
pretty much anything you'd expect software to be able to collect and that they
can share that info with whoever they decide to partner with.

Contrast to some other password managers that stay flat out, they don't
collect your data and don't want to know it.

From their Privacy Policy

> 1\. Information We Collect and Receive

> Service Data (including Session and Usage data):

> When you use our Services, we receive information generated through the use
> of the Service, either entered by you or others who use the Services with
> you (for example, schedules, attendee info, etc.), or from the Service
> infrastructure itself, (for example, duration of session, use of webcams,
> connection information, etc.) We may also collect usage and log data about
> how the services are accessed and used, including information about the
> device you are using the Services on, IP addresses, location information,
> language settings, what operating system you are using, unique device
> identifiers and other diagnostic data ...

> Third Party Data: We may receive information about you from other sources,
> including publicly available databases or third parties from whom we have
> purchased data, and combine this data with information we already have about
> you. We may also receive information from other affiliated companies that
> are a part of our corporate group. This helps us to update, expand and
> analyze our records, identify new prospects for marketing, and provide
> products and services that may be of interest to you.

> Location Information: We collect your location-based information for the
> purpose of providing and supporting the service and for fraud prevention and
> security monitoring. If you wish to opt-out of the collection and use of
> your collection information, you may do so by turning it off on your device
> settings.

> Device Information: When you use our Services, we automatically collect
> information on the type of device you use, operating system version, and the
> device identifier (or "UDID").

That's pretty much everything given they put an extension in your browser and
can collect all of that info for every page you visit

> 4\. Information Sharing

> ... We may share your personal information with (a) third party service
> providers; (b) business partners; (c) affiliated companies within our
> corporate structure

Why would anyone want a password manager with this privacy policy?

~~~
MuricaFYeah
> Why would anyone want a password manager with this privacy policy?

Why would anyone want a cloud based, proprietary, non-free, non-oss password
manager is what I really want to know.

~~~
thekingofh
Because there's not a replacement that syncs well and is easy to teach your
non-techie parents/spouse how to use to log into their shared accounts.

~~~
ptx
What's the problem with the built-in one in Firefox? It has optional syncing
if you want it.

~~~
thekingofh
Firefox Lockwise is very new and quite frankly doesn't have very many features
that people require such as import, export, etc. At this point I don't even
know how to get all my password manager passwords into Lockwise even from a
simple comma delimited file.

Right now, it's still impossible to switch to it for a lot of people.

------
chrisblackwell
LastPass... :-(

~~~
wffurr
1Password is better and unlikely to be acquired. They are quite profitable on
their own.

~~~
rietta
And doesn't work on Linux.

~~~
Eikon
It does:
[https://support.1password.com/explore/linux/](https://support.1password.com/explore/linux/)

There is even a cli: [https://1password.com/downloads/command-
line/](https://1password.com/downloads/command-line/)

Not having a native gui is not the same as "not working".

~~~
rietta
Sweet! I used 1Password for years and then went LastPass for Linux support. At
the time only the recovery mode worked to the best of my knowledge. This was
in the 1Password 4 days.

------
tomaszs
The pricing for LogMeIn and Hamechi and TeamViewer is ridicolous. Paying tens
of dollars for a TightVNC with a middle server is more luxurious than having
WinRar licence

~~~
morpheuskafka
I don't know why anyone would pay for Hamachi when you could self-host
ZeroTier for free or pay $30/mo for unlimited user of their hosted service.

~~~
tomaszs
Oh man 30 dollars... So the problem with SaaS is that if you dont earn money
directly from using SaaS most of the time you are outside of the scope of the
business. Because SaaS needs to remove the lowest pricing so that the direct
earning users choose the higher one. I can not pay 10 dollars for occasional
service because its bad for the SaaS business aimed to more heavy users. I
dont like it in SaaS model and i cant see any solution for this. Its like
pizzahut stopped selling margherita and capricosa. SaaS dont sell margherita
and capricosa!

~~~
gyrgtyn
It's free up to 30 devices, or free forever if you host your own.

------
sbr464
Yep, we also used to have thousands of machines under management (across
different clients), I always loved logmein, but moved to teamviewer for
pricing reasons.

For example, in $:

0 > 1,500 > 3,000 > 5,000 > 8,000 > 12,000 > ...

(For the same service, over the years)

We left around 6-8k. The issue was always around a lack of transparency and
arbitrary price increases, never about the actual price.

------
bitxbit
Makes sense that LastPass was “slow” to adding new features (such as u2f)
lately.

------
thrillgore
Aw shit, I use LastPass.

------
dillonmckay
So, any recommendations for alternatives to LogMeIn Rescue for remote support,
that supports mobile remote support (SDK, not another mobile app)?

------
DyslexicAtheist
I used LastPass then 1Password before.

today, I've finally switched to KeepassXC today and am wondering why I haven't
done this any sooner. Really happy especially with the cli. If you don't trust
your AES stack (shitty implementations on certain SSD's) you have options such
as chacha20. The whole project seems well maintained too.

there was a rework-podcast today with DHH and Dave Tear discussing venture
capital and what this funding means for 1Password. [https://rework.fm/venture-
capital-and-control-with-david-tea...](https://rework.fm/venture-capital-and-
control-with-david-teare/)

------
ProAm
Didn't Citrix own LogMeIn?

~~~
linuxdude314
Citrix owned Citrix Systems Online (owned GoTo* IP)which was rebranded to
GetGo which was then spun out using a reverse-Morris trust to LogMeIn after
receiving threats of a hostile takeover from Elliot Management.

------
iamaelephant
LastPass has taken a huge dip in quality since the Logmein acquisition and I
expect this will only make it worse.

