“Shares of Cobalt Networks Inc. , the maker of a small, blue
server-in-a-box, soared almost 500 percent on Friday in its initial
public offering, making it the third biggest initial public
offering ever.”
“The Mountain View, Calif.-based company develops low-cost,
compact server appliances for running Web sites and e-mail that are
easy to install. Cobalt servers, one which is called Qube, also run
the Linux operating system, the free upstart operating system that
competes with Microsoft Corp.’s Windows NT.
“They’ve got all the magic words between appliances and Linux,
but there is also some meat behind this. It’s not just smoke and
mirrors, it’s a real business,” said Irv DeGraw, research director
at WorldFinanceNet.com.”