For the last year or so, there has been a growing buzz around the concept of cloud computing. Several acquisitions from major technology players last year shows just how important cloud computing is expected to be. We even see that Microsoft has been using the word in some recent advertising campaigns. How important it will be for the major tech players to position themselves in the space and how profitable the buzz word will become remains to be seen. One company, however, is positioned to take advantage of the fight no matter what the outcome.
IceWeb is a tiny company trading on the OTC BB worth around $30 million. What has our interest is the company's business model, which at first glance looks like a simple data storage company. What they actually do is create software and other products for a wide variety of organizations and service providers that act as the fundamental building blocks for their storage and other cloud based systems. In other words, they are selling to the players that are competing in the space and may be holding some technology that these companies will need.
From the company's website:
“Offering unparalleled storage efficiency rates, sophisticated yet simple-to-use data protection capabilities, and an advanced suite of inter-connects and disk drives.”
“Providing enterprise-class storage at a price that makes sense. We challenge you to find a more capable platform for the price.”
IceWeb's financial results have so far been pretty weak, but although not technically in development stage, it is still quite infantile despite being founded about a decade ago. It's sales for fiscal 2010 were up almost 50% over the same period last year, although the company has yet to turn a profit. Shares outstanding have just about doubled every year since the companies inception, and now stand at around 134 million. The stock price has been cut in half just about every year as well after adjusting for splits, however, the last year has seen some price stability and positive momentum.
What is key to this companies potentially propitious future is it's ability to customize cloud solutions to to variety of specific industries. For example, early this year IceWeb announced that it received an order from BP to assist them in analyzing the Gulf Oil Spill. The company can provide ready-to-deploy solutions tailored either to larger company's specific projects, or small to mid sized company's overall business objectives. The primary driver and selling point is cost savings.
IceWeb has seen a steady stream of orders and contract awards over the past few months, as well as the addition of several new products. In January, the company announced the addition of Solid State Drives (SSD) to it's main product line. This allows them to add significantly higher performance where needed, and also allows them to raise the price. The SSD market is expected to grow over the next two years into a multi-billion dollar business.
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