Ellison's on-demand baby on track for 2006 IPO

On-demand business software vendor NetSuite has confirmed it is on target to go public around the turn of the year, with an IPO it hopes will see the company valued at $1bn (£600m).

Evan Goldberg, the chairman, founder and CTO of NetSuite, told silicon.com: "We're looking to [hold an] IPO late this year or early next year. It's the next major milestone for us."

"We've been preparing the company for some time and we're in very good shape," he added.

Goldberg, who founded the company in 1998, said the money raised will allow NetSuite to further expand an international presence which has already seen growth into areas such as Australia, Japan, Singapore and the UK.

The image of operating as a publicly listed company will also afford it some added kudos, he said.

"Hopefully it will help us reach new users with the greater momentum that it will give us. There is a higher profile which comes with being a public company," said Goldberg.

While other IPO announcements have led to acquisition long before the float takes place, perhaps most notably with the now Symantec-owned Brightmail, Goldberg said he fully expects to see NetSuite follow through on its IPO announcement.

"Frankly we're not a very good acquisition target," he said. "We're an all-encompassing business suite. We don't fit in with anybody else's product portfolio. And our owner [Larry Ellison] doesn't need the money."

"It's not something I view as all that plausible," he said. "But anything can happen."

Goldberg said Oracle's acquisition strategy, which has already consumed Siebel and PeopleSoft, and Ellison's 60 percent stake in NetSuite do not conflict with one another.

"We don't encounter Oracle when we're out there selling NetSuite," he said. "Larry [Ellison] has a very clear idea of where he wants to see NetSuite and how he wants it to grow in the mid-market."