Last week two significant developments took place in the world of datacenter technologies. At first these two events may seem unrelated but a closer look makes for an interesting debate about how we’ll be managing our IT environments and who will be providing the solutions.

First Marc Andreesen posted on his blog, “HP bought my company for $1.6B.” He thanked everyone that had ever worked at Loudcloud and then Opsware as it is now known. Marc also pointed out anyone who had ever bought his company’s stock made some money. That’s cool.

The $14.25 a share HP paid was a 39% premium, but I was actually surprised by the acquisition. I expected Opsware to go much further on their own.

After eight years Opsware is still losing money, $10M in the last quarter on $28M in sales. I remember running into Marc in Palo Alto a few years ago and he said if a customer wasn’t willing to spend at least a million dollars it didn’t really make sense for Opsware to engage. IMHO much of this originates from the fact that the original Opsware product and technology does something very ambitious making it harder for potential buyers to try it out. This requires a significant effort by Opsware to support those customers who decide to take the plunge.

On the flip side BladeLogic floated their initial public offering last week. Although a much smaller and newer player than Opsware, Blade Logic closed after one day of trading with a $655M market capitalization. Comparing the two Opsware reported more than $100M in trailing 12 month revenues and BladeLogic reported $36M. HP bought Opsware for 15x trailing revenues and Bladelogic is trading at 18x trailing revenues. But, prior to the HP acquisition Opsware was trading at just 9x trailing revenues or half the relative valuation of Bladelogic.

So what do the Blade Logic share holders know that Opsware’s didn’t? Perhaps after eight years and different business models Opsware’s supporters just got tired. Maybe the frothiness of the public market for tech companies is back and shining on BladeLogic?

Certainly it seems BladeLogic has an easier to adopt solution given the fast ramp in customers and revenue they’ve experienced. Yet it is unclear looking at the numbers as to whether Bladelogic has a higher growth and/or more leveraged operating model than Opsware.

But in their most recent quarter Bladelogic did report $12.5M in revenues on an operating loss of just $185k and it does seem Wall Street likes the new darling better.

So will you be buying a do it all automation solution from HP or an easier to deploy bite size product from BladeLogic to handle your routine datacenter tasks?

With all the consumer Internet, video sharing, Web 2.0 hype in Silicon Valley, it’s easy to forget lots of money still gets made investing in the less sexy nuts and bolts stuff. This past week, the Wall Street Journal published a piece summing up the effect of technology IPOs over the past 18 months. It seems not only is the market for initial public offerings improving since the doldrums of post the 2000 hangover, but investments in software, telecom and data storage are leading the way making money for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and public market investors willing to look again at young technology companies.

Is infrastructure the new sexy?

Let’s look at the numbers. In the past 18 months, 45 IPOs backed by VCs raised more than $10.2 billion. A good part of the money raised in these offerings has come from the “oh not too sexy” infrastructure companies selling software, telecom gear and storage systems for other businesses. And these new companies are smarter, stronger and more profitable than their bubble brethren. Not only were a number of these companies profitable when they floated public stock, but a number of them are already at market capitalizations of more than $1 billion.

As the Wall Street Journal points out,

last month alone, four software, telecom and data storage companies — Starent Networks, Limelight Networks, Infinera Corp. and Data Domain Inc. — launched initial public offerings. Another telecom company ShoreTel Inc., debuted early this month. The shares of all five have risen at least 30% since the IPOs.

So what about all those consumer deals? I mean come on YouTube was bought by Google for $1.7B recently. Well it turns out only a handful of the technology companies that have gone public recently are focused on serving consumer markets. But YouTube and MySpace seem to get all the attention. And they seem to be getting more of the venture capital dollars too.

Venture capitalists in the first quarter poured nearly $1.4 billion into Internet companies, broadly defined, up 46% from $956 million a year earlier. Meanwhile, the amount of money that venture investors are putting into networking-gear and telecom companies, while still large, is declining. These financiers invested $655 million in communications and networking companies in the first quarter, down 22% from about $844 million a year earlier.

Yes we in America and it seems Silicon Valley love the latest trend. One VC was quoted saying, “It’s sort of like five-year-old kids playing soccer: they all swarm around the ball.” Of course over time this will sort itself out. Either these consumer, Web 2.0 investments will make money or the VCs and firms that made those investments will find other jobs. But from one geek’s perspective it sure is nice to think about being sexy. Again.