SaaS data loss: The problem you didn’t know you had

BladeLogic has revealed intentions to raise about $45.4m in an initial public offering of common shares later this year.

The server provisioning and management software company will put 3.9 million shares on the block, while stockholders sell an additional 1.1 million shares, according to an amended filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Lexington, Massachusetts-based company has applied to trade under the ticker symbol "BLOG."

BladeLogic intends to use $5.9m of the proceeds to redeem and cancel all shares of its Series A preferred stock. The remaining capital will be used for the expansion of the company's sales and marketing and funding R&D efforts. BladeLogic said it may also use the money for funding future acquisitions or investments.

For the six months ended March 31, BladeLogic's total revenue increased to $27.1m, compared with $12.2m in the same period the previous year. The company has not yet been profitable since it formed, but its net loss has decreased from $4.1m at the end of March 2006 to $195,000 ending March 2007.

The company makes BladeLogic Operations Manager software, which manages server and application services. The software automates server provisioning and configuration changes to servers and applications as well as handling auditing, updates and migration configurations.

BladeLogic said it has approximately 200 customers, including ten Fortune 500 Global 50 companies. The company lists its primary competitors as BMC Software, Configuresoft, Opsware, and larger firms such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Symantec. ®

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