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Note: Business-specific software companies, including a few financial services application providers, are preparing to go public with hopes the cloud will differentiate their offerings from the botched FaceBook IPO.
NEW YORK - Data analysis software company Tableau Software and developer tools maker Atlassian are among several small, business software firms preparing to go public in the next 12 months, hoping a growing market for cloud computing will shield them from the aftermath of Facebook's botched IPO and Europe's woes.
Sources familiar with the situation said others include AppSense, whose user virtualization technology allows people to use different devices; Marin Software, which offers an online advertising management platform; Rapid7, which makes network security software; Rally Software, a provider of project management tools; and CollabNet, which offers web-based software development tools.
These business software companies join other tech firms that are also looking to go public. Cloud-based phone systems provider RingCentral is close to picking bankers, sources familiar with the situation said. Ruckus Wireless, which supplies Wi-Fi products to mobile operators, has chosen Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as its lead underwriters, the sources said.
On Friday, cloud security provider Qualys Inc filed with U.S. regulators to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering. The California-based company picked JPMorgan Chase & Co and Credit Suisse as lead underwriters for the proposed offering.
All the seven business software companies offer products for the software as a service, or SaaS, market, in which software and associated data are hosted on remote servers, or the cloud. This segment of the market has been increasing in popularity because...