Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-10-12)

T E C H N O L O G Y

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Bloomberg Businessweek October 12, 2020

ILLUSTRATION BY NADIA HAFID

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● Cloudcomputingstock

valuesandIPOsaresoaring

in the Covid-eraeconomy

This year willberememberedasa terribletimefor

the economy,witha fewexceptions.Cloudcom-

puting is one.

The blockbuster$3.4billionstockmarketdebut

of SnowflakeInc.standsoutasa primeexample

of the industry’ssuccessdespitea bleakeconomy.

The cloud-datacompanymorethandoubledits

share priceinitsfirstdayoftrading,onSept.16.

The same day,anothercloudcomputingcompany,

JFrog Ltd.,raisedmorethan$500millioninits

initialpublicoffering.A globalexchange-traded

fundofcloudcomputingstockshasrisen11 times

morethanthebroaderstockmarketthisyear.

Allthehypehasobserversmakingcomparisons

tothedot-comdays,wheninvestorspushedthe

sharepricesofprofitlessinternetcompaniesinto

thestratosphere,onlytowatchit endhorribly.

Thistimethere’salsoa reasonable-soundingratio-

nalefortheexuberance:Today’sglobalpandemic

hasincreasedtheimportanceofcloudcompanies

ina work-from-homeworld.

There’s“aconfluenceoffactorsthat’saiding

cloudadoption—remotework,themoveaway

fromon-premisedatacenterswithCovid-19,and

fastinternetconnectivity,”saysMandeepSingh,

a seniortechnologyanalystwithBloomberg

Edited by

Sarah McGregor

Watching for a

Cloudburst