Rackspace IPO....

[Chris Marino]

Interesting reading here in their S-1 http://is.gd/1jGf.

In spite of their 'cloud computing' positioning, their debut was not so warmly received,

http://www.thestreet.com/print/story/10432556.html

This is a much better business than I originally thought, but as we all discussed back on this thread, AWS makes this a really tough business unless you move up the stack.

CM

[Tarry Singh]

Rackspace are on a solid track. I've spoken and covered the folks on several occasions and know that they are competing excellently with the likes of Google, IBM, MS and are doing it very low key. John told me to watch out for some more exciting news. They're going for gold, as they say in Dutch.

--
Kind Regards,

Tarry Singh
______________________________________________________________
Founder, Avastu: Research-Analysis-Ideation
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LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tarrysingh
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[Khazret Sapenov]

Chris,

Thanks for pointer, this is really interesting.

 

Just checked at http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/intchart.asp?intflavor=advanced&symb=RAX&sid=3313099&freq=9&time=1dy&dist=TQP_chart_image

it went down already to $9.90, so their investors should have pretty good nerves and self-control.

 

While analytics predict general webhosting growth,

 "... the U.S. market for Web hosting, which typically involves providing server space for companies' external Internet sites, will grow at a compound annual rate of 19% through 2012. The U.S. market is expected to rake in $10.6 billion in 2008. ",

looks like traditional web hosting will be replaced by cloud computing offerings within next decades.

 

Old-style(traditional) hosting companies like Rackspace should adapt quickly to new trend, otherwise they will have very low chances to grow, eventually serving only SMB clients.

There's still time and ways for conversion.

 

Tarry, situation might change pretty fast, so that RAX won't see how Amazon, Google and IBM take lion share of their pie. Perhaps they have "secret weapon", but I'm still skeptic about this company - old dog can't do new tricks.

 

[Shane Jones]

It's going to be hard for Rackspace to maintain their margins as all
of the other big players come online with new datacenters and cloud
computing offerings. It's going to be a brutal market for smaller
players to keep pace.

-shane

On Aug 8, 8:29 pm, "Khazret Sapenov" <sape...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ****

>
> On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 3:32 PM, Chris Marino <ch...@snaplogic.com> wrote:

> >  Interesting reading here in their S-1http://is.gd/1jGf.

>
> > In spite of their 'cloud computing' positioning, their debut was not so
> > warmly received,
>
> >http://www.thestreet.com/print/story/10432556.html
>
> > This is a much better business than I originally thought, but as we all

> > discussed back on this thread<http://groups.google.ca/group/cloud-computing/browse_thread/thread/3f...>,

> > AWS makes this a really tough business unless you move up the stack.
>
> Chris,
> Thanks for pointer, this is really interesting.
>

> Just checked athttp://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/intchart.asp?intflavor=advanc...

> it went down already to $9.90, so their investors should have pretty good
> nerves and self-control.
>
> While analytics predict general webhosting growth,

>  *"... the U.S. market for Web hosting, which typically involves providing

> server space for companies' external

> **Internet*<http://www.thestreet.com/print/story/10432556.html#>
> * sites, will grow at a compound annual rate of 19% through 2012. The U.S.
> market is expected to rake in $10.6 billion in 2008. ",*

[Ajay ohri]

The stock is down 20 % on day 1  as per NYT

Ajay
www.decisionstats.com


"

Rackspace Hosting, a San Antonio company that provides Web hosting to corporate clients, went public Friday, ending a six-month market drought in initial public offerings of shares in technology companies.

But Rackspace's shares sank 20 percent in their first day of trading, and analysts cautioned that the company's debut, which raised $187.5 million, did not signal a turnaround in the dim prospects for tech start-ups hoping to cash out by selling stock to the public.

"There has been far too much importance placed on this I.P.O. as the pied piper for the tech sector and for the health of the I.P.O. market," said David Menlow, president of IPOfinancial.com. "Rackspace is not the I.P.O. market savior."

Rackspace priced 15 million shares at $12.50, the low end of their expected range, Thursday evening. The shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange Friday at $10, rising as high as $11.58 before closing at $10.01."

[Reuven Cohen]

The one thing I can say about Rackspace's cloud team is they're very
smart and innovative in terms of their technical capabilities. That
alone is enough reason for me to buy a few shares of RAX. I'll also
say, they may not be as well funded as Amazon but they are every bit
as competitive with their thousands of existing enterprise customers
who already trust them.

Reuven

[Khazret Sapenov]

Sometimes smart/tech guys have disconnect with sales guys (see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcQ7RkyBoBc )
so end result is often far from ideal (judging by their previous
attempts).

If cloud vendors would provide easy migration to RAX existing
clientele,
most of them will trade overnight to get additional benefits.

[Dan Kearns]

On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 8:29 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sap...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tarry, situation might change pretty fast, so that RAX won't see how Amazon, Google and IBM take lion share of their pie. Perhaps they have "secret weapon", but I'm still skeptic about this company - old dog can't do new tricks.

 

Ouch. If I were rax, it would not make me happy to be called an old dog compared to IBM.

I'd think the $100 mil raised would be able to fund some new tricks, and traditional provider experience isn't necessarily a bad thing. I suspect it's not quite enough money to really keep up though.

-d

[Khazret Sapenov]

On Aug 9, 2:10 pm, "Dan Kearns" <d...@thekearns.org> wrote:

IBM still brings some innovation (its number of patents exceeds
rax's), though maybe I don't have all information about RAX.

As for IPO move, I guess they've found something really interesting
and confirmed it on small scale testbed,
now asking for more money to expand it. Let's see what they actually
have to offer.

[Krishna Sankar (ksankar)]

Dan,

Yep, you are right - $100 million nowadays doesn’t bring enough juice ;o(. Remember facebook borrowed ~$150 million just for its infrastructure. And, as others mentioned, IBM et al have a wide spectrum of business, like their GS, to derive synergy from.  Actually RAX would be a good acquisition for a company like IBM, Google or Amazon, who can immediately leverage and monetize the resources.

Cheers

<k/>

[Moshref]

It all depends on their burn rate. Keep in mind VCs are very tight right now, so they must have a compelling solutions!

 

Rgds,

Moshref

[Tarry Singh]

You guys still are underestimating Rackspace's potential. There are developments within (externalized and internalized ventures) Rackspace that will soon be evident. I've spoken to the CTO on several occasions and have understood that they have a cool culture. They have satisfied and dedicated staff, highly collaborative and tremendously industrious. They are testing stuff in their Data Centers that is world-class and their data centers are soon going to come up on global scales. They sure are looking to be GDM-aware. So yes, the competition may be tough but I wouldn't rule out any "smaller" players yet.

On Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 4:47 AM, Mario Rodriguez <mr0...@gmail.com> wrote:

I did not see much about however did anyone here about what etrade did
to all the people that were buying stock? So all people buying with
etrade got charged 3-4 times the correct amount causing lots of people
to immediately sell the stock thinking they had some major losses in
their account and causing the stock to also fall.

ma...@thecloudtalk.com

On 8/8/08, Chris Marino <ch...@snaplogic.com> wrote:
> Interesting reading here in their S-1 http://is.gd/1jGf.
>
>
> In spite of their 'cloud computing' positioning, their debut was not so
> warmly received,
>
> http://www.thestreet.com/print/story/10432556.html
>
> This is a much better business than I originally thought, but as we all
> discussed back on this thread

> <http://groups.google.ca/group/cloud-computing/browse_thread/thread/3f40
> b2d4ef9e0f7/096663b1129a219c?lnk=gst&q=money+in+SaaS#096663b1129a219c> ,

> AWS makes this a really tough business unless you move up the stack.
>
> CM
>
>
> >
>

[Cameron]

Moshref -

> .. Keep in mind VCs are very tight right now ..

From what I've been seeing (I am pretty close with a variety of people
in venture capital), VCs have piles of cash right now, but not a lot
of good investments in sight ..

Peace,

Cameron Purdy | Oracle
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/coherence/index.html