With the offering, LinkedIn hopes to raise $175 million. The company reports revenue for the 2009 fiscal year of $120 million and a loss of about $4 million. And for the first nine months of 2010 it reported revenue of $161 million with a profit of $1.9 million, or about 4 cents a share. It may be profitable now, but it doesn’t expect to be profitable on a GAAP basis in 2011 because it expects its costs to increase. Leading the list of costs it expects to increase: Technology infrastructure.

As of Sept. 30 it was sitting on nearly $90 million in cash.

As BoomTown’s Kara Swisher reported earlier today, the offering will be led by Morgan Stanley, with J.P. Morgan Securities, Allen & Company and UBS Securities all part of the underwriting team. No mention of Goldman Sachs however, which is also an investor.

The Mountain View, Calif., company runs what it calls “the world’s largest professional network on the Web with some 90 million members in 200 countries and territories.” The filing reports a monthly average of 65 million unique visitors during the three-month period ended December 2010, nearly double the 36 million from the same period in 2009, and 5.5 billion page views during the same period, up from 2.8 billion in 2009.

LinkedIn’s had a head count of 1,000 990 full-time employees as of Dec. 31. Of those, 524 were in engineering, product development and customer operations; 313 were in sales and marketing; and another 153 were classified as general and administrative.

Revenue for the first nine months of 2010 breaks down like this:

LinkedIn says that 27 percent of net revenue came from customers outside the U.S.

CEO Jeffrey Weiner made $462,297, including a base salary of $250,000 a year and a bonus of more than $211,000. He has options to purchase 3,521,237 shares at an exercise price of $2.32 per share, and blocks of these options vest on a monthly basis. So far, options on about 1.6 million shares, or about 45 percent of his total option grant, have vested.

CFO Steven Sordello made $342,507, with a base salary of $240,000 and a bonus of $101,306. He has options to buy about 295,000 shares in various blocks, with strike prices that range from 46 cents to $2.32 a share.

Founder and chairman Reid Hoffman owns more than 19 million pre-IPO shares, or a little more than 21 percent of the company. With valuation estimates for the company ranging from $2 billion to $3 billion, Hoffman’s stake would be worth somewhere between $428 million and $642 million.

Weiner owns 3.8 million shares, or about 4 percent, a stake worth between $82 million and $123 million. Among LinkedIn’s VC investors, Sequoia Capital has a little less than 17 million shares, or 19 percent, followed by Greylock Partners, with 14 million shares, or a little less than 16 percent. Bessemer Venture Partners has 4.6 million shares, or about 5 percent. They invested total venture funding of $103 million and collectively hold stakes worth between $796 million and $1.19 billion, depending on the valuation.

LinkedIn’s long-awaited entry into the public market is one that many expect will be followed by other Internet firms in the coming year, including Zynga, Chegg and, finally, Facebook. And news of the filing comes on the heels of yesterday’s IPO by Demand Media, a Web publisher based in Santa Monica, Calif., which went public yesterday, with an offering that valued the company at $1.5 billion. Another anticipated IPO, by Skype, looks like it will be delayed until later this year.

Yet an IPO is only one of the various scenarios that could take place at LinkedIn. According to NetworkEffect’s Liz Gannes, one scenario could be an acquisition by Google or Microsoft that takes place either right after filing of the S-1, or right after an IPO. Recent stock purchases have pegged the company at a valuation of about $2 billion, and an IPO would likely push it even higher.

“We believe Apple is likely gaining some iPhone traction in enterprise with 19 of top 100 Fortune 1000 companies having iPhones deployed,” Um wrote. “However, we do not think this is a displacement of solutions such as BlackBerry but, rather, believe it is likely at the expense of other Microsoft Exchange capable smartphones.”

Um sees great opportunity in this trend, as long as Apple is willing to step up its game a bit. “In order for Apple to gain greater traction in the enterprise market,” he writes, “the company must overcome some issues including providing 24×7 customer support, providing more future product roadmap details (to allow large enterprises to build ahead and prepare), provide alternatives to OS upgrades solely from iTunes desktop application.”

Ironic, isn’t it, to read such a note in light of all the smack Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once talked about the iPhone? “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share,” Ballmer said in 2007. “No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Windows Mobile 6.5 “an Amazing Engineering Feat,” All Right…
• Perhaps if They Think of Their Win Mobile Devices as Broken iPhones…

Li’s upgrade follows numerous price target increases, with the highest I’ve seen being Asia-based brokerage CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets’s $430 price target.

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According to Bostock and Co., Icahn just doesn’t get it (and, to be fair, there are some who agree). “Your letter reflects a significant misunderstanding of the facts about the Microsoft proposal and the diligence with which our board evaluated and responded to that proposal,” Bostock wrote. “A fair-minded review of the factual record leads to one conclusion: that Yahoo’s 10-member board, comprised of nine independent directors along with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, remains the best and most qualified group to maximize value for all Yahoo stockholders. Conversely, we do not believe it is in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders to allow you and your hand-picked nominees to take control of Yahoo for the express purpose of trying to force a sale of Yahoo! to a formerly interested buyer who has publicly stated that they have moved on. Please may I remind you that there is currently no acquisition offer on the table from that company or any other party.”

Well, no acquisition offer that Bostock knows of, anyway. Microsoft may not be finished with Yahoo yet. “We think Microsoft may still be interested [in Yahoo] as, in our view, it needs Yahoo to compete vs. Google,” wrote UBS analyst Ben Schachter in a research note today. “We continue to think a deal will be reached.”

According to Bostock and Co., Icahn just doesn’t get it (and, to be fair, there are some who agree). “Your letter reflects a significant misunderstanding of the facts about the Microsoft proposal and the diligence with which our board evaluated and responded to that proposal,” Bostock wrote. “A fair-minded review of the factual record leads to one conclusion: that Yahoo’s 10-member board, comprised of nine independent directors along with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, remains the best and most qualified group to maximize value for all Yahoo stockholders. Conversely, we do not believe it is in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders to allow you and your hand-picked nominees to take control of Yahoo for the express purpose of trying to force a sale of Yahoo! to a formerly interested buyer who has publicly stated that they have moved on. Please may I remind you that there is currently no acquisition offer on the table from that company or any other party.”

Well, no acquisition offer that Bostock knows of, anyway. Microsoft may not be finished with Yahoo yet. “We think Microsoft may still be interested [in Yahoo] as, in our view, it needs Yahoo to compete vs. Google,” wrote UBS analyst Ben Schachter in a research note today. “We continue to think a deal will be reached.”

And it has others suggesting that Microsoft and the Internet search pioneer may announce a deal as early as this week. Predicting that Yahoo is unlikely to post stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings next week, UBS Securities (UBS) analysts Benjamin Schachter and Heather Bellini say they wouldn’t be surprised if in the next few days the company agreed to be acquired by Microsoft. “We still think Microsoft will prevail,” Bellini said in the note. “We would not be surprised to see a deal struck sometime this week, and think it will end up being for a higher price than the original $31 per share offer.”

And who knows, it could happen. A merger of the two companies has seemed a foregone conclusion for quite a while now. As Tech Trader Daily’s Eric Savitz aptly notes, “… in the end, it’s simply obvious. Microsoft needs to buy. Yahoo needs to sell. The rest is a sideshow.” Mafioso Torch Yo, anyone?

And it has others suggesting that Microsoft and the Internet search pioneer may announce a deal as early as this week. Predicting that Yahoo is unlikely to post stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings next week, UBS Securities (UBS) analysts Benjamin Schachter and Heather Bellini say they wouldn’t be surprised if in the next few days the company agreed to be acquired by Microsoft. “We still think Microsoft will prevail,” Bellini said in the note. “We would not be surprised to see a deal struck sometime this week, and think it will end up being for a higher price than the original $31 per share offer.”

And who knows, it could happen. A merger of the two companies has seemed a foregone conclusion for quite a while now. As Tech Trader Daily’s Eric Savitz aptly notes, “… in the end, it’s simply obvious. Microsoft needs to buy. Yahoo needs to sell. The rest is a sideshow.” Mafioso Torch Yo, anyone?