Straits Times - Feb 5, 2000 -

The five engineering students from NUS are gearing up to list their online IT magazine on the stock market.

FIVE engineering students at the National University of Singapore are hoping to list their online IT magazine-publishing venture, HardwareZone.com, on the stock market even before they graduate.

Undergraduates Lee Choon Yau, Eugene Low, Poh Swee Hong, Ang Chi Hoe and Jereme Wong started the online magazine in August 1998 to enable computer enthusiasts to interact and share information.

It includes IT news from around the world and Singapore, reviews of computer products and even price lists from Sim Lim Square.

The five compiled the information from other IT websites, data from manufacturers and did some old-fashioned legwork, including visits to Sim Lim Square.

HardwareZone.com, they said, has two million page views a month, the number of times the website's pages were accessed by readers.

They do not know how this compares to other local IT magazines like PC World and The Web, which have online versions, as the other magazines' figures are not published.

They registered their company two months ago and rented space in Ayer Rajah Crescent for $500 a month.

They have no profits to show yet but said they are on the brink of making money, mostly through advertisements by compu ter vendors in Sim Lim Square.

Now they plan to turn their website into a full-fledged IT portal by the end of the month.

They devised software that will allow them to update news, reviews and price lists through the Internet.

Mr Lee, who is the company's chief, said this would improve their efficiency because they will be able to update the news easily and more often.

They also plan to offer classified advertisements free to registered members.

The members will be able to place the advertisements from home.

Instead of going to work in an engineering company for their compulsory six-month industrial attachment, they have attained NUS permission to work on their IT portal.

Mr Lee says the next step is to find venture capitalists to invest in their business, so that they can expand further.

He said they have spoken to some potential investors and if that bears fruit, they hope to launch an initial public offering early next year. Associate Professor Chou Siaw Kiang, head of the NUS industry and technology relations office, said if they do launch an IPO, they will be the first undergraduates here to do so.

A venture capitalist they approached said: "I believe that increasingly, content will make all the difference and HardwareZone.com has it.

"And based on the figure of two million page views -- that is 70,000 page views a day. I would say they have high potential. I am definitely interested."

Mr Lee said: "Many people would see launching an IPO as having made it. For us, it would be the start. With the injection of capital, we can take the business further."