Ride the Wild SiRF

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They're back, and they're in style.

Initial public offerings (IPOs) for several private companies in the wireless sector are once again on the calendar. Yesterday marked the IPO of SiRF Technology (Nasdaq: SIRF), a company supplying global positioning system (GPS) chips and associated technology that gets incorporated into cellular phones and other mobile electronic gear, enabling "location awareness."

And the company couldn't have picked a better time to launch its IPO. With a recent stellar earnings announcement from equipment maker Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and an equally impressive report from Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM), the market was fired up about prospects in communications equipment stocks. Investors enthusiastically greeted the newly minted stock, bidding up shares to $15.30 by the end of the day, more than 27% above the offering price.

SiRF priced its IPO at $12 per share -- the high end of the original range -- and offered 11 million shares after bumping it up from the initial 10 million shares. Of the total allocation, the company issued 7 million, and the other 4 million came from current shareholders. One of the most notable is Conexant Systems (Nasdaq: CNXT), which recently sold its GPS division to SiRF and boosted its ownership to roughly 23%.

SiRF originally filed for its IPO in Oct. 2000, but pulled back as the market quickly soured and underwriters were looking for a little thing SiRF lacked called profits. Today, the company is making money and has bright prospects in incorporating its technology into millions of mobile devices.

More wireless IPOs are scheduled in the next few months, with Seven Networks and Jazz Semiconductor going public soon. Seven Networks provides wireless data software and is one of the few survivors from the days of wireless data euphoria. Jazz Semiconductor is yet another spinoff from Conexant and is a specialized wafer foundry for wireless and optical networking semiconductors.

Foolish investors are best served by exercising restraint in the face of euphoric public launches, however. While SiRF maintains solid revenue and income, volatility in the shares makes investing this early risky. It's usually best to wait a few quarters to have the opportunity to review detailed statements from new public companies before making an investment.

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Fool contributor Dave Mock is almost certain there's no surf in SiRF's hometown of San Jose, Calif., but he's willing to check it out. He owns shares of Motorola.