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Technology Stocks : IBM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ben Beale who wrote (4656)	2/8/1999 3:18:00 AM
From: Ben Beale	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8218

Big Blue's troubles mentioned in 5th paragraph of BT Alex Brown's comments on last quarter. Message 7691885

To: Ben Beale who wrote (4656)	2/8/1999 3:49:00 AM
From: Ben Beale	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8218

Bloomberg News.... IBM's NetObjects Files for IPO That Could Raise Up to $70 Mln Washington, Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- NetObjects Inc., an International Internet software subsidiary, filed for an initial stock offering that could raise as much as $70 million. The Redwood City, California startup specializes in software to build corporate World Wide Web sites. More than 1 million Web pages have been built using the company's NetObjects Fusion software, according to its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. NetObjects' IPO has generated interest because of its backing by IBM -- which owns about 80 percent of the company before the offering -- and what is seen as its proven ability to compete with Microsoft Corp. in the market for Web development software. That market is expected to grow as the number of corporate Web sites increases, to an estimated 12.3 million in 2000 from 6 million today, according to forecasts provided in the filing. The company will use as much as $22.5 million of the proceeds to repay debt owed to IBM, according to its SEC filing. The rest will be devoted to working capital and other general corporate purposes. The company, led by Chief Executive Samir Arora, didn't specify the number of shares it would sell or the estimated price range. Those details will be included in a future filing. The $70 million top value was estimated solely to calculate the SEC's registration fee. NetObjects said in a statement that it expects to complete the offering in the first half of this year. NetObjects had a net loss of $22.2 million in the year ended Sept. 30, 1998 on revenue of $15.3 million. The company had a net loss of $17.8 million in the year ended Sept. 30, 1997 on revenue of $7.6 million. IBM acquired about 80 percent of NetObjects in April 1997. The IBM relationship represents a substantial amount of NetObjects' business as well -- accounting for 36 percent of its revenue in its 1998 fiscal year and 50 percent of revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 1999. The bulk of that came from royalties paid by another IBM unit, Lotus Development Corp., to bundle NetObjects' software with Lotus products, and from services related to integrating NetObjects' software with the parent company's products, the filing said. Underwriters for the offering will include BT Alex. Brown, BancBoston Robertson Stephens, and Piper Jaffray Inc. NetObjects has filed to trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol NETO.