The current wave of Internet company initial public offerings (IPOs) and stratospheric valuations means this second generation of dot-com businesses has the potential to change the landscape of the IT industry — not just in the US where they are raising vast funds, but around the world.

Google’s IPO seven years ago gave it an R&D and acquisitions war chest of $1.67 billion that helped it, among other things, break into the enterprise IT market with cloud-based office apps, enterprise search appliances, web analytics and security services. In a similar way, the latest batch of IPOs will provide mountains of cash to fuel similar ambitions that span the consumer and business worlds. And the numbers involved are eye-popping:

• With its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in May, business social networking company LinkedIn added $352.8 million to its bank balance
• Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine group, floated a week later on the NYSE, raising $1.3 billion
• During the same month, Renren.com, China’s social networking giant, raised $743 million with its US listing
• Group discount site Groupon said in June that it hopes (at some stage) to raise $750 million with its IPO
• China’s answer to Amazon, Jingdong Mall (also known by the name 360buy.com), is targeting a US IPO of $4-$5 billion next year.

Of course, all of these are likely to be dwarfed by Facebook’s much talked-about flotation (expected next year), given that the company’s current valuation is around $50 billion, according to analysts such as Goldman Sachs.

Not all of these companies have stated ambitions in mainstream IT. But then no one ever suggested back in 1997 that an online bookseller would become the world’s biggest public cloud computing company, or in 2004 that a web search and online advertising company would lead the market for cloud-based office apps.