NetSuite IPO is sweet as a nut

NETSUITE'S oft-delayed IPO is finally a done deal and looks like being another lucrative episode for backer Larry Ellison.

The first day of trading under the company’s very cool ‘N’ symbol gave the software-as-a-service outfit a valuation of over $2 billion as shares soared to $35, well over double earlier projections. That’s a nice reward for the patience of Ellison as Netsuite has been around since the first dot-com era and has seen old rival Salesforce.com sprint by it in the interim. Salesforce, the darling of the on-demand world, is valued at about $7.7billion.

Originally known as Netledger, Netsuite sells a, um, "suite" of accounting, business planning, sales force automation and CRM apps. CEO Zach Nelson paints the company as an SAP for smaller businesses, or even a Microsoft for the hosted back office. If his hunch that buyers want hosted suites rather than individual modular components is correct, then Salesforce will have a fight on its hands.

Oh, and if Ellison is nervously patting his wallet after an expensive visit to the Christmas shops (the price of those Nintendo Wii things!), he ncan always look forward to another payday from another investment that is currently private, his storage company Pillar Data. µ