• Business Week, Thursday, December 20, 2007 11:15 AM

NetSuite, a software venture from Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, goes public today in a Dutch-style initial public offering that could raise nearly $161 million, which would give NetSuite a market value of more than $1.5 billion. The software maker will sell 6.2 million shares, approximately 10 percent of the company. Its target price is $26 per share, which had been raised twice in the lead-up to today's IPO.

NetSuite's offering will be one of the year's most closely watched, due the overall economic climate and the lack of tech IPOs in recent years. It also comes at time when many people begin their holiday vacations. The NetSuite IPO will be used as a temperature gauge for investors' optimism (or pessimism) for Internet stocks. "The very structure of this auction will cause a pop on the first day, because [investors] will be looking at it speculatively," says Eric Gebaide, a managing director at investment bank Innovation Advisors.

NetSuite sells enterprise-level accounting software over the Web. The company's customer base is largely small to midsize businesses, as many large firms view the hosting of sensitive information over the Web as inherently risky. However, that attitude could change over time, providing a boost to Web-based software makers.

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