Speaking Of....

The Dutch, Data Domain is also run by a Dutchmen - Frank Slootman.  And yes, he is also tall, and about to be able to buy a lot more Amstel's.  DD is on the path to their IPO which could happen in short order.  At the market caps of other recent tech IPO metrics such as Riverbed, Isilon, and Commvault, It will not surprise me that DD comes out big.  They sell a lot of stuff, and have the luxury of really being the first and broadest in the whole data de-duplication space - which today is used primarily for backup targets but that kind of technology will have a play in all aspects of storage.  They settled their differences with Quantum over some patents, so I think it's show time.

Speaking of IPO's - has anyone ever quantified the business impact of a company pre-public and post?  It makes sense that prospects on the fence about buying from a smaller private company suddenly feel their investment is worthy if a company is now public, but I wonder what happens to things like the average length of a deal.  I assume it becomes a shorter time from prospect to customer, but I've not seen any data on that.  I guess I'm wondering what other real business value is derived from the IPO exercise, besides the obvious.  What I do know is that once you are public, life doesn't get easier if you are the CEO and management team.  If anything, the pressure becomes far greater and forget about privacy.  Being a mucky muck has always been hard, but being one with all the scrutiny that comes from being public is whole different ball game.  It would be interesting to analyze data on how CEO's have faired in the post Sarbanes-Oxley era of going public.  I bet it's a good time to buy Mylanta stock.

Speaking of stocks - has anyone paid attention to the bizarre coincidence that EMC's stock is up about 10% since there has been a bunch of press about how Joe Tucci and others are paid?  Joe's good, but not good enough to suddenly make the price of the stock go up just for the heck of it. Most of his compensation is already tied to stock appreciation, so I'm pretty sure he's on board with the whole "raise the stock price" issue.  It doesn't seem reasonable for shareholders to be able to vote on compensation, because only a B player CEO would ever take a job in that circumstance.  I want a CEO making a fortune if the compensation is tied to the right metrics - like increasing shareholder value.  The last thing I want is some nitwit dumb enough to take a job where stockholders and employees get to vote on their pay.  There is a reason why big successful companies are what they are, and to think you can get a quality chief on the cheap is just plain dumb.