NaviSite began as the in-house hosting shop for CMGI, the internet holding company, and then sold the same service to everyone else. Every company wanted a website, and few wanted to run the servers behind it. NaviSite hosted and managed those sites in its own data centers. When it filed to go public in the fall of 1999, hosting looked like a way to profit from the web without betting on any single website.

Rent, Don't Build

NaviSite's bet was that its hosting skill could become a business of its own. Outside customers needed reliable, managed hosting. They could rent space, bandwidth and expertise instead of building data centers, and NaviSite would earn steady monthly fees. CMGI's own family of internet companies gave it a base of customers from the start. Each new site meant another rack of servers and another monthly bill.

Bought by Time Warner Cable

NaviSite priced at $14 a share in October 1999. Its dot-com customers vanished in the crash. The company went through years of losses, restructuring and acquisitions. It slowly shifted toward managed services and application hosting for bigger businesses. In 2011 Time Warner Cable bought NaviSite for about $230 million to grow its business services. The deal came more than eleven years after the offering.

Cover: British Sail Ship, from the set of eight Pictures of Foreign Ships, Unknown Artist. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a sailing ship (navigation).