The next Internet era is upon us
With hundreds of companies slogging away in Silicon Valley, slowly turning themselves into profitable ventures, the taste of an IPO seems closer than ever before according to this Fortune story:
The best examples are Google and Salesforce.com. Google, less than five years old, now powers more than 200 million web searches per day, employs over 1,000 people, and by many accounts (though not its own; it won't comment) is nearing $1 billion in annual revenues, with hundreds of millions in profit. Salesforce.com, the Siebel Systems competitor that makes online tools for managing the sales process, is younger than Google and smaller, but growing rapidly. Benioff says that the company is in its second profitable quarter and that sales, which have been doubling annually, are running at a $100-million-a-year clip. Neither company is allowed by the SEC to discuss it, but many investors and techies expect both to go public within a year.
There's no question that a new hunger for dot-coms is building. Revenues and stock prices are soaring for public stars of the Net like Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo. And though fewer than 15 venture-backed firms have gone public since mid-2000, roaming-Internet access provider iPass tested the market in July and lived to tell about it. It garnered a valuation of over $1 billion and has seen its stock rise from an opening-day $14 to a recent $19.50.