Wall Street has turned up its nose this year at big consumer technology floats, including those of the taxi-hailing services Uber, whose shares are up by less than 1 per cent from their offer price, and Lyft, which is down by 11 per cent (James Dean writes). It’s a different story, though, with technology companies that cater to businesses.
One of the most successful debuts of the year has been Zoom Video Communications, which develops video-conferencing software. Its shares are up by nearly 140 per cent since their April debut. Those of Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity company that was listed last month, are up by 90 per cent.
Slack is one of these companies. It falls into the “software-as-a-service” category, the new(ish) model of selling software