| Sumario: | On December 20, 2007, NetSuite, which provides business software that runs inside a Web browser, saw its share price rise by 37 percent on the first day of trading. On the same day, Salesforce, another firm offering Web-based software, briefly enjoyed market capitalization of almost $8 billion thanks to its share prices reaching new heights. Debate has arisen over whether these figures are justified. Market-research firm Gartner predicts that the market for Web-based applications will grow from $5.1 billion in 2007 to $11.5 billion by 2011, but where and how this demand will manifest itself in the business-software market is uncertain. Not only have doubts arisen as to whether selling software this way is lucrative, but there are also concerns about the future of NetSuite and Salesforce themselves.
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