So far this year, it's been a topsy-turvy IPO market for tech companies. Some offerings hare surged, like VMware (NYSE: VMW) and Data Domain (Nasdaq: DDUP), while others have crashed, such as Sourcefire (Nasdaq: FIRE) and Limelight Networks (Nasdaq: LLNW). So there was some trepidation late last week when BladeLogic (Nasdaq: BLOG) announced its fiscal third-quarter results.
The company, which develops sophisticated technology to manage data centers, did not have any nasty surprises for the quarter. Revenue skyrocketed 109% to $16.2 million, and license revenue surged 104% to $10.9 million. The average selling price for BladeLogic's offerings has gone from $264,000 to $310,000 over the past year.
To accommodate this growth, management has ramped up expenses in the sales and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative categories. But with 80%-plus gross profit margins and strong revenue, the company is realizing operating leverage. As a result, the net loss shrunk from $2.9 million to $272,000, or $0.03 per share.
BladeLogic recently launched a new product to manage the complexities of virtualization (which allows higher utilization of servers and drives down overall costs). As seen with the huge success of the VMware IPO, the market for virtualization is a megatrend in tech and is growing at a rapid clip. So management continues to be upbeat with its growth ramp, forecasting fiscal Q4 revenue of $17 million to $17.5 million.
I recently mentioned that I think investors should wait a bit on BladeLogic. While it does have heavyweight competitors like BMC (NYSE: BMC) and IBM (NYSE: IBM), the company seems to have a product offering that stands out among the noise, and there should be a lift from the virtualization product. While this is certainly not a stock for conservative Foolish investors, it's one to consider for those who are risk-tolerant momentum players.
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Fool contributor Tom Taulli, author of The Complete M&A Handbook, does not own shares mentioned in this article. He is currently ranked 2,509 out of more than 60,000 investors in CAPS. The Fool has a disclosure policy.
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