Yahoo To Acquire IndexTools Web Analytics Service

Google offers Google Analytics.
Microsoft has its "Gatineau" or recently renamed

Microsoft adCenter Analytics service in beta. So I suppose it was inevitable
that Yahoo get in on the web analytics action. The company

announced today that it is acquiring Tensa Kit, which produces the
IndexTools analytics service.

Products from Google and Microsoft are free to use, and it sounds like
IndexTools — currently a fee-based product — will shift to being given away:

Following the acquisition, the first group of customers to benefit from
these enhanced tools will be more than 150,000 small-to-medium businesses
marketing on the Web with Yahoo!. Additional capabilities enabling third-party
developers to monitor and optimize the traffic performance of their
applications are expected to follow throughout the year following the
acquisition.

Ironically, Yahoo already owns one set of analytics tools, those gained when
it bought Overture, which in turn had
purchased Keylime
Software. Many expected that purchase to cause Overture — and then Yahoo — to
provide a free analytics package. That never happened.

The purchase price was not named in the press release. The deal is expected
to close by the first half of this year.

For more, see related discussion on Techmeme.

Postscript Barry: IndexTools is now mostly free for many customers. A post by the COO of IndexTools, Dennis R. Mortensen, on April 15th, has the details.