Just three weeks have gone by since Akamai officially welcomed Linode into our fold, and I’m encouraged by the excitement that so many have expressed about the combination of our two companies since we announced the acquisition in February. In conversations with us, industry analysts use the word “transformational” to sum up the potential impact of our merger on the marketplace. \r\n To understand why, it helps to understand first where Linode fits in the cloud market, what makes Linode stand out from competitors, what Akamai adds to Linode’s capabilities, and how the synergies of this combination create something greater and more exciting than the sum of the parts. \r\n Linode was an early pioneer in creating the market for alternative clouds. You can even make the argument that Linode created the alternative cloud category. Linode grew by serving use cases that don’t require all of the capabilities and features offered by the big three cloud providers.…