Company Profile: iPass Inc.

Location: 650 Castro St., Suite 500, Mountain View, Calif. 94041Telephone: (650) 237-7300Web: www.ipass.comNiche: Provides worldwide access to corporate networks for the price of a local phone callWhy it's worth watching: IPass promises to let IT managers scrap the modem bank and still offer mobile users scalable, secure access.

Company officer: Michael Mansouri, chairman and CEOCompany goal: IPass is planning an initial public offering during the first half of this year.

Milestones:

- October 1996: Company is founded, Internet roaming product is released- July 1997: Corporate access product is released- June 1999: Mansouri replaces co-founder Chris Moore as CEO- December 1999: Third-round financingEmployees: 80; growing 25% per yearBurn money: $21 million from Accel Partners, Asia Pacific Ventures, Crosspoint Ventures, Intel Corp. and Meritech in the recent round of funding.

Services: Clearinghouse services

Customers: Intershop Communication Inc., Ncube, PSINet Inc. and GTE Corp.

Partners: More than 650 Internet providers, Cisco Systems Inc., Nortel Networks and 3Com Corp. have signed with iPass.

Red flags for IT:

- Potential rivals include companies that already own a lot of wires - think AT&T Corp. If the big carriers decide to enter the market, iPass could be in trouble.

- Someone who owns a lot of satellites - think Iridium LLC - might decide to enter the market.