NetSuite: We're ready for IPO

On-demand business software vendor NetSuite has confirmed it is on target for an intial public offering around the turn of the year, which it hopes will see the company valued at $1 billion.

Evan Goldberg, chairman, founder and chief technology officer of NetSuite, said: "We're looking to IPO late this year or early next year. It's the next major milestone for us."

"We've been preparing the company for some time and we're in very good shape," he added.

Goldberg, who founded the company in 1998, said the money raised will allow NetSuite to further expand an international presence which has already seen growth into areas such as Australia, Japan, Singapore and the U.K.

The image of operating as a publicly listed company will also afford it some added kudos, he said.

"Hopefully, it will help us reach new users with the greater momentum that it will give us. There is a higher profile which comes with being a public company," said Goldberg.

While other IPO announcements have led to acquisition long before the float takes place, Goldberg said he fully expects to see NetSuite follow through.

"Frankly we're not a very good acquisition target," he said. "We're an all-encompassing business suite. We don't fit in with anybody else's product portfolio. And our owner (Larry Ellison) doesn't need the money."

"It's not something I view as all that plausible," he said. "But anything can happen."

Goldberg said Oracle's acquisition strategy, which has already consumed Siebel and PeopleSoft, and Ellison's 60 per cent stake in NetSuite do not conflict with one another.

"We don't encounter Oracle when we're out there selling NetSuite," he said. "Larry (Ellison) has a very clear idea of where he wants to see NetSuite and how he wants it to grow in the mid-market."

Will Sturgeon reports for London-based Silicon.com