Posted on Tuesday, November 04 2014 @ 13:09 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Benchmarking firm Futuremark announced they've been acquired by Underwriters Laboratories (UL), an international safety consulting and certification company headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. UL plans to use Futuremark to create a new business line in testing the performance, safety and privacy features of a wide variety of technological devices. Futuremark on the other hand notes the partnership will open new doors to expand the range and depth of its benchmark offerings and the resources to tap into Asia.
UL, a global safety science leader, today announced the acquisition of Futuremark, the market leading provider of performance benchmarking software. Futuremark, a privately held company based in Finland, develops the world’s most widely used benchmarks for desktop computers, notebooks, tablets and smart phones. The acquisition marks UL’s entry into the software development industry, a strategic imperative for the company to help meet the growing demand for performance data.
“Embedded software is now an important part of product design. With an increased focus on mobility, we see more and more products being connected, making the Internet of Things a reality. Consequently, software quality is a significant driver of product safety and performance; and we believe that benchmarking is an important way to help our customers to improve the performance of their products,” said Stephen Kirk, VP and GM of UL Consumer Technology Division. “This acquisition provides us with an opportunity to build a new business line in testing a wide variety of technological devices so they offer the performance, safety and privacy that consumers expect.”
Market demand for benchmarking services is driven by intense global competition to improve product performance and competitive differentiation. In addition, empowered users are seeking more data to assess new products during purchase consideration.
Futuremark has been developing industry standard benchmarks since 1997. Today, Futuremark receives a new benchmark result every four seconds on average.
UL plans to increase investment in Futuremark’s product development, expanding the range and depth of the company’s benchmark offering. In addition, Futuremark will tap UL’s global scale and resources to expand into Asia and develop new market opportunities for its products and services.
“In recent years, we’ve expanded on to new platforms, our software has been adopted by the European Commission and national governments, and we’ve welcomed more of the world’s leading technology companies into our Benchmark Development Program,” said Jukka Mäkinen, CEO, Futuremark. “We’ve accomplished a lot on our own, but with UL, we’re in an even better position to achieve our goals.”
Futuremark’s focus on creating outstanding benchmarks will continue with UL’s support and investment. Futuremark’s 39 employees, including CEO Jukka Mäkinen, will join UL and remain with the company.
“Both UL and Futuremark have a longstanding tradition of neutrality and independence,” added Kirk. “I think this common cultural trait makes the two companies a great fit for each other, our employees and our customers.”
The transaction closed on October 31, 2014.
