"For some time now, Google's board (which includes two of Silicon Valley's best-known venture capitalists, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital) has been deliberating how to translate that power into money. They appear to have decided to bring Google to the stockmarket next spring. Bankers have been overheard estimating Google's value at $15 billion or more. That could make Google Silicon Valley's first hot IPO since the dotcom bust, and perhaps its biggest ever."

To be worth the rumoured $15 billion for longer than it takes a bubble to burst, it will need to raise its profitability substantially.