Goldman Sachs Conference: pcorder.com Plans IPO

After Tuesday's big drop in technology stocks, are Internet initial public offerings on shaky ground? Amid yesterday's carnage, Goldman Sachs rolled out the red carpet for its latest IPO candidate, pcorder.com, placing the company in the largest ballroom at the Goldman Sachs technology symposium and shoving the $3.5 billion-market-cap Veritas Software (VRTS Quote) into the anteroom.

The reason: pcorder.com has a .com in it.

"It's going to be a big one," groused an analyst from another Wall Street brokerage firm in attendance.

Ross Cooley, former head of Compaq's (CPQ Quote) North American division, is the CEO of pcorder.com, an e-commerce clearinghouse for hardware companies to buy and sell PC products. Speaking in industry buzzwords, Cooley said: "You know how Inktomi (INKT Quote) is the provider of an [original equipment manufacturer] solution to America Online (AOL Quote) and Yahoo! (YHOO Quote). We want to be an OEM provider to IBM (IBM Quote) and Hewlett-Packard (HWP Quote). ...