Unaudited results indicate CityFibre grew its revenue 36% yoy to £9m during the first six months of FY17 as the company expanded its fibre to the premise (FTTP) and fibre to the home (FTTH) proposition and customer base. Gross profit increased to £7.9m from £5.7m in H116, with total comprehensive losses shrinking from £7.5m to £5.9m in the same period (FY16 £12.6m).

The AIM-listed wholesale broadband provider connected another 745 customer premises to its fibre metro area network (MAN), with an additional £11m of initial contract value (ICV).

The “densification” rather than expansion of that infrastructure to reach as many enterprise and consumer customer premises within the 42 major UK cities it currently operates in (50 by 2020) is now the nature of CityFibre’s game (subscribers can read our profile of the company here). It has a large slice of the £202m pot it raised through a July share placing to fund that activity, despite having spent £29m on rival UK wholesale communications service provider Entanet.

Political winds are also blowing in CityFibre’s favour. The government has pledged up to £1.5m of financial support for full fibre infrastructure investment which should push many local authorities CityFibre’s way and introduced 100% business relief on new fibre builds for five years.

The dismissal of the business connectivity market review (BCMR) and associated dark fibre regulation also looks like good news for the company, which had originally challenged Ofcom’s decision to force BT Openreach into providing rival broadband providers with access to its dark fibre network.

As things currently stand, CityFibre will continue to be one of just a handful of companies - including BT Openreach, Virgin Media and Zayo - leasing duct and fibre infrastructure to retail broadband providers, though the situation might not look quite so rosy if Ofcom fashions a revised proposal for dark fibre access at some point.

4 – 5 October 2017
ExCeL, London

www.payexpo.com/europe
T: +44 (0) 20 7384 7893

PayExpo Europe is the UK’s largest payments technology conference and exhibition and an essential event for anyone involved in making payments faster, easier or more secure.

Attracting over 2,200 senior representatives from banks, retailers, gaming groups, government departments, transport operators and mobile network suppliers, the event hosts five major conference streams which will address key current industry topics.

It also includes multiple features, many of them interactive, showcasing the future of financial and payments technologies. Case studies and regulatory updates from industry-leading speakers will provide key insight and best practice, while a large exhibition will showcase innovative new solutions from leading industry suppliers.

Free passes are available for retail banks, retailers, MNOs, gaming operators, transport operators, government authorities, start-ups and CEOs.

PayExpo Europe part of European Payments Week, a festival of events focussed on bringing the payments community together in London; the heart of the global payments industry.

For further press information or photography, please contact:
Jordan Roozpeikar or Chris Lewis at
PayExpo Press Office,
Clareville Communications
T: 020 7736 4022, F: 020 7736 3504, E:jordanroozpeikar@clareville.co.uk; chrislewis@clareville.co.uk

Despite a continued slowdown in the UK, its largest country market, and a slug of restructuring costs, management at (now) AIM-listed, UK-headquartered international recruitment firm Harvey Nash pulled the right levers to keep operating margins steady in first half, albeit boosted by the release of aged accruals in its Netherlands operations.

Headline revenues for the six months to 31st July rose by 12.6% to £425.3m, up 9.2% in constant currencies (ccy). Gross profit grew by 2.0% (down 3.7% at ccy) to £48.2m, trimming gross margins by over 1 point to 11.3%. Operating profit grew pretty much in line with revenues, holding the margin steady at a still undernourished 1.1%.

Harvey Nash’s UK business fared well enough under the circumstance, with just a 1% decline in gross profit, to £18.2m, now 38% of group GP. The main issue was the decline in permanent placements notably in UK public sector. However, this result was much better than much larger UK-based recruiters such as SThree and Hays.

The impact of recent acquisitions (see Harvey Nash adds digital colour with Crimson) will start to be seen in H2 and should boost earnings. Meanwhile, CEO Albert Ellis tells me that they are seeing offshore demand ramp up due to the skills shortage, which I do find interesting as I have never been entirely convinced that outsourcing belonged in Harvey Nash’s portfolio.

But there we go – so far, so good.

Compared to fiscal 2016, total revenue growth slowed for Accenture in its last financial year (to end August 2017). Revenues increased 6% - or 7% in local currency – to $34.9b. Organic revenue growth was around about 4% (inorganic contribution just above 2%). That compares to 10.5% growth in local currency in FY16 – or 7.5% organic growth. In FY17, all industries grew, with a particularly strong performance from ‘products’ – at 14% (local currency growth) - after nine consecutive quarters of double digit growth. The UK business grew by a high single digit percentage.

It’s the mix of the business and segmental growth rates that make for the most interesting reading. Firstly, Accenture’s ‘rotation to the new’ (to high growth business areas such as digital, cloud and security services) continued unabated. We had already seen evidence of this in the Q3 results (see (Accenture hits 50% milestone in the ‘new’). 30% growth in the ‘new’ (which means an 11% decline in traditional IT services revenues) led to those business areas accounting for 50% of revenues. That compares to 30% two years ago and 40% a year ago. In FY17, the ‘new’ accounted for 60% of new bookings.

Also interesting, though, is the performance of strategy & consulting (flat) versus application services and operations (double digit growth). That is a contrast to FY16 when consulting was a significant growth driver (see Enterprise Software and Application Services Rankings). The message is that new technologies have matured and are now moving into ‘operations’ mode. Whereas, in 2016, the emphasis was on early-stage advisory and development. The nature of work in 2016 has resulted in pull-through for Accenture’s other business areas.

Accenture will now be looking for the same lifecycle for some of the more pioneering technologies in which it is investing. Highlighted by the management team was the use of quantum computing in the business (it is working with Biogen, a biogenetic company to apply quantum computing to genome analysis and segmentation); immersive realities; and data driven services.

Despite continued organic investment in skills, continued expansion of partnerships (like that with Apple – see Apple intensifies enterprise ambitions with Accenture), and record investments in strategic acquisitions, profitability remains strong. The GAAP operating margin was 13.3%; the adjusted operating margin was up from 14.6% to 14.8%. That is expected to improve again in FY18 – to between 14.9% and 15.1% - on revenues that are expected to grow between 5% and 8% (with a 2.5-3.0% inorganic growth contribution.

Only a week to go! Our expert analyst team is busy putting the finishing touches to their presentations for An Evening with TechMarketView on Thursday 5 October and the sommelier and chef at RIBA are preparing to welcome some 200 of our guests - leaders from across the UK tech sector - to the drinks receptions and dinner. 

If you haven't yet managed to secure your place at our flagship annual event we may still be able to squeeze you in. There are only a few places left but these are going quickly - book your place via the website or contact our event coordinator Tina Compton (tina.compton@tx2events.com) directly to secure your ticket.

More details on the event are to be found here. We look forward to seeing many of you there!

Interim results from recruitment software and services provider Dillistone Group were secondary to the announcement of its GatedTalent executive database. The product is data led and addresses the coming GDPR compliance headache.

While still firmly in the recruitment space, it marks a departure for Dillistone - who traditionally has sold technology such as unpopulated databases and CRM systems - because GatedTalent is about curated data services. Born out of the need for GDPR compliance, chief executive Jason Starr describes it as a transformational product for the company.

We have previously highlighted GDPR as an opportunity for Dillistone (see here). It provides a way for very senior executives to keep control of the integrity of their personal data and determine who sees it – data is stored centrally and shared only where the individual choses to. Executive recruitment firms already collect individual data but the executives concerned have no way of knowing who holds it or how accurate it is.

GatedTalent, has the potential to effectively reverse that situation. For recruitment firms, the centralised data aspect, opt in nature (executives will be primarily be invited to join and it will be free for them to use) and a model whereby individuals keep their profiles up to date themselves, will help with aspects of GDPR compliance and data accuracy. It could provide the impetus for executives to remove themselves from recruitment firms, but that could happen anyway because of GDPR.

For Dillistone, there is also potential to pull through additional sales of its existing products which will be valuable given the challenging start to the financial year, although revenue from GatedTalent (recruitment firms will pay largely by subscription) is not expected until 2018. It is an interesting data-driven play and a model for monetising data.

For the record, after the tough start, H1 performance (to June 30 2017) did improve resulting in a 0.4% nudge up in revenue to £4.8m, including recurring revenue up 10% to £3.7m. Both divisions - Dillistone Systems and Voyager Software - were profitable however overall loss after tax was £0.02m vs. a profit of £0.49m in 2016, largely due to GatedTalent costs. The directors have invested £0.4m via a convertible loan to further fund the new offering. 

I am sad to report that Len Taylor died on 26^th Sept 17 at the age of 82.

Len won a scholarship to study Mathematics at Hertford College Oxford in 1954, where he graduated with first class honours. He then got an MSC with distinction from Chelsea Polytechnic, now part of King’s College London. 

Len Taylor was one of the real pioneers of the UK IT services sector. He was the co-founder - with Philip Hughes and Pat Coen - of Logica in 1969. They had worked for SCICON and together had approached backers for their new venture. Planning Research Corporation came up trumps and provided the capital required to launch Logica. Logica became a giant in our sector. It undertook projects that really did move the boundaries. Eg in 1971 designing the control systems for the National Grid and, in 1973, the SWIFT network. Logica can lay

claim to have introduced the concept of ‘Turnkey’ systems with the advent of mini computers. Logica’s work on word processing systems might not have been a commercial success - but it was ground-breaking at the time.

I remember in the 1980s writing a critical report on Logica - which was going through a bad patch at the time - only to be rebuked with ‘please remember we designed the guidance systems for the Trident missiles and the software that enabled the ESA Giotto satellite to track Halley’s comet’. Unlike others who put commercial success above all else, Logica was a ‘techie’ company. Whenever I visited at that time, it seemed rather like a University campus.

Logica was one of the first UK HQed company to float on the LSE in 1983 when Logica staff owned 40% of the company which at that stage was valued at £80m. Len Taylor stepped down from day-to-day operations in 1990 but stayed with Logica until 1995.

But Logica remarkably remained independent - and a leading SITS company - until 2012 when they were acquired by Canadian CGI for £1.7b. The very last of that cohort of major UK-owned SITS companies - like Hoskyns, CAP, SD-Scicon etal - to ‘fall’.

Len Taylor's legacy and contribution to the UK tech scene is both unrivalled and - if I was honest - rather unappreciated/unsung. His passing gives an opportunity, at last, to recognise the huge impact that Len had on the whole UK tech scene and, indeed, on so many lives that he touched.

His son Neil Taylor told me “After building Logica from a pioneering idea in the 1960s to a publicly-listed global business, Dad stayed with the firm for long enough to ensure the new management was securely in place, and then he retired. He’d worked hard his whole life, and now he just wanted to relax and finally

 enjoy the fruits of his labour. 

He could have hung around, played off his successes and become fantastically wealthy as the digital revolution took off (after all, that’s exactly what his successors did), but he’d already accomplished all his professional ambitions. Dad didn’t want to work his life away for wealth that he’d never enjoy. Instead, he chose to enjoy his life and spend time with the people he loved. For Dad, family was at the heart of everything he did. He’d always had a passion for travel, so he was happy to leave the corporate world to explore broader horizons”

I am pleased to pass on these other comments:

“Len was a brilliant leader . Logica could not have existed and prospered without him.

He first attracted to Logica a highly talented team.Then he inspired them and structured and organised the whole company .

At a personal level I am forever grateful for the partnership , the guidance and the support that he gave me over so many years .

What should be recognised is not just his leadership of Logica, but also his great contribution to the development of the whole industry in the 1970s and 1980s  .

My thoughts and commiserations are with Joan and her family .”

Philip Hughes - Co-founder of Logica in 1969

“I first met Len Taylor when I joined Logica in December 1973. In the thirteen years that followed, until I left to emulate him by striking out on my own, he was an outstanding, clever mentor, an unswerving supporter of those he believed were committed to the company and a true, generous colleague and friend. 

Len's defining characteristic was his honesty in his dealings with others, whether clients or employees. From that strong platform he commanded universal respect.

After we'd left Logica we continued close friends, meeting frequently to lunch and talk politics, business and our travels. 

It was a privilege to have worked for and with Len. I'm much saddened by his passing yet sustained by happy memories of Logica's many successes and the part he played  in them.”

Gordon Olson - Formerly MD, Logica VTS Ltd, Director Logica Ltd. 

“Very sorry to hear

He’s coming up to a year in post, and CEO Richard Petti still has much work to do to make Cambridge-based, AIM-listed ‘Enterprise Location Intelligence’ systems supplier, Ubisense, make sense.

This is perhaps not surprising given that founding CEO Richard Green hung on rather too long before accepting the fact that he was not the best person to see the company through its next stage of development (see Ubisense CEO senses it’s time to go – at last!). As a result, Ubisense was losing ever more money and its shares had lost over 85% of their value since its 2011 IPO.

Petti is running Ubisense as a ‘business of two halves’, but the operating models are quite different. The RTLS SmartSpace division is the smaller but faster growing, driven by low margin hardware and services sales – and margins are declining. The smaller but more profitable Geospatial division is a software play with associated services, but relies on geospatial services from third-party products to complete the solution.

Meanwhile the numbers are pretty much as presaged in its recent trading update (see Ubisense sensing better numbers), with headline revenues for the six months to 30th June up 16% to £12.4m, but net losses deepened again to £1.9m.

I still reckon there’s a lot of ‘good stuff’ in there, but it will take much more work by Petti to tease it out. This will be a long haul but, I feel, worth the effort.

Tantalum is the chemical element of atomic number 73, a hard silver-grey metal of the transition series. It is also the business name that the vehicle telematics provider Lysanda switched to in early 2014 after it had acquired stolen vehicle recovery and fleet telematics player Tracker Network Ltd from general insurance provider Direct Line Group (see Lysanda rings Direct Line for telematics).

I tell you this because regular readers will know that we believe that ‘autotech' is a huge market and growing fast, and Uxbridge-based Tantalum is a player in it. Indeed Tantalum has just secured a £2.5m cash injection from long-standing investor London-based, Disruptive Capital Investments. Tantalum also announced its expansion within the US, adding an office in Silicon Valley to complement its existing operations in Atlanta and London.

Tantalum had also received a £1.9m grant from the UK government to trial Tantalum’s Air.Car system across London and other UK cities suffering from illegal levels of NOx and other particulate pollutants. Tantalum had previously announced a ‘significant’ investment by Korean automotive technology company Handysoft, part of the Dasan group.

Founded in 1997 (as Lysanda), Tantalum had revenues of £293k in 2015, but recorded net losses of £1.6m. So let’s hope that 73 turns out to be Tantalum’s lucky number!

At the end of my article yesterday - More changes on the High Street - I asked if robots could ever replace hairdressers. In part, this was answered in The Times today by The Future of Skills report (produced by Nesta and Pearson) which actually reported that around 10% of workers - including many in occupations currently considered as ‘low skilled’ - could see their jobs grow in importance. It predicts ‘a re-emergence of artisanal employment in occupations such as barbering, brewing and textiles’. So hairdressers now seem one of the safest jobs to have. Who would have thought that?

The report makes the point that the three previous industrial revolutions - steam, electricity and the computer - were all preceded by predictions of ‘doom and gloom’ on the jobs front. But almost exactly the opposite occurred. More jobs and more people in employment now than ever before. It is just that the jobs are very different.

The report predicts that jobs in Teaching and Education will soar as will those associated with Food preparation and Hospitality closely followed by other ‘Elementary service occupations’ like care assistants. The report also makes the point that as we all rush to empower our children with coding skills, programming and statistical analysis is one job area which will be greatly (and negatively) affected by automation.

I happen to agree with all of that. I also think that jobs that have high levels of creativity will also prosper. Music, video, design, fashion etc are all areas which, of course, will be affected by technological advance but will always need to be led by creative humans.

So perhaps the future isn’t quite as dire as we feared!

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Please help the TechMarketView (TMV) team reach their fundraising target for the Prince's Trust Palace to Palace event on Sunday 1st Oct 17.

TMV's Dale Peters, Holly Pressly, Helen McTeer and Martin Courtney have been training hard and will be up against some 4000 riders from the likes of Accenture, Capita, HPE, HP Inc, Fujitsu, AT&T, Atos, Capgemini, CGI, Dell etc.

It is not a cycle race as such. We should remember that its real objective is to raise much needed funds to help the work of the Prince's Trust does with disadvantaged young people in the UK.

So, pleasehelp by sponsoring one (or all) of the team on Justgiving. Click here.  

Digital Barriers, provider of advanced technologies to the security and defence sectors, will sell the bulk of its business after a “disappointing” FY17 (year ended 31 March 2017), which ended with a loss before tax of £16.7m.

Revenue was up for the year, growing 25% to £26.5m (FY16: £21.1m), but cost of sales increased by 57% to £16.6m (FY16: £10.6m) and administrative costs were up 30% to £22.8m (FY16: £17.5m).

One week before its year end, Digital Barriers released a profit warning to say that sales and contracts expected to be secured in FY17 were unlikely to be realised until FY18 (see here). As the value and complexity of projects in its business pipeline have increased, Digital Barriers have struggled to accurately predict the timing of contract awards.

Following this profit warning, management undertook a review, which concluded Digital Barriers was essentially operating as two business. Its Video Business, which includes its EdgeVis and SmartVis technology and Brimtek (acquired in December 2015) generated 92% of revenue in FY17 (£24.5m), which was up 32% (FY16: £18.5m). It’s Thruvision Business, which provides people screening technology for border security, counter-terrorism and loss prevention applications, contributed just £2.0m, which was down 24% on the previous year (FY16: £2.6m)

The board concluded that continuing under the current structure would stretch resources too far. Despite its relatively modest revenue, the decision was made to retain the Thruvision Business and sell the Video Business. The board decided that Thruvision is not as vulnerable to the unpredictability of sales cycles and benefits from protected technology and an emerging customer base, including the US Transportation Security Administration and G4S (see here). Digital Barriers is currently in advanced discussions with two parties interested in the Video Business, with talks expected to conclude shortly.

The board will hope that that a (much) leaner, more focused Thruvision Group Plc (as it will be called following the divestment, assuming it gets shareholder approval) will be able to tap into a more predictable market with significant growth potential.

It’s not always all about software startups. Newcastle-based digital design consultancy hedgehog lab proves the point that investors are also willing to back fast-growing services businesses that are in the right place at the right time. Indeed, hedghog lab has just been backed by Maven Capital Partners to the tune of £1m.  

Founded in 2007, hedgehog lab now employs 120 people. The big spurt was last year, which reportedly saw hedgehog lab's revenues grow by 130% and headcount double to 98. hedgehog lab has clients in the UK, US, Denmark and India, such as Thales, The FT and Channel 4, and delivery teams in the UK and India.

According to a media report, hedgehog lab aims to grow by 50% p.a. through to 2020. This implies that its delivery headcount will need to grow at a similar pace, unless it is able to industrialise its development processes, not easily done for a bespoke app dev shop. It would be reasonable to assume, then, that the extra headcount would be mainly taken on in India in order to keep cost growth in check.

It would also be reasonable to assume that they will never get to see 2020 as an independent company.

Maven has made a shrewd investment with a potential quick and fruitful exit!

Northgate Public Services (NPS) has been awarded a contract to provide the housing management solution for London Borough of Wandsworth as a shared service with London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The £1.6m deal covers 42,000 properties across the two councils.

Wandsworth will be NPS’s first new customer in the housing sector for over two years and the first council to go live with its new NPS Housing platform. The contract will take 19 months to implement and the contract period extends for a further eight years.

NPS will be providing a range of software as part of the deal, including NPS Housing, SAM (Strategic Asset Management), its self-service solution Housing Online, a CRM platform and Repairfinder, its repairs diagnostic software. It will also work with Wandsworth to develop new functionality in its software. 

Under the leadership of new CEO Steve Callaghan, NPS has made targeted R&D investments in areas it believes have growth potential, housing being one of them (see Transforming Northgate Public Services). NPS is up against some siginificant competitors in the housing sector, including Civica (the incumbent supplier in Wandsworth) and Capita. Its early days, but this win will be seen as evidence that its new strategy if paying off. 

A pretty big vote of confidence for London-based identity management platform startup, Onfido, which has just raised a further $30m in a Series C funding round led by ​Crane ​Venture ​Partners​with ​participation from ​Microsoft Ventures, ​Salesforce ​Ventures​and ​other ​existing ​investors. Founded in 2012, Onfido had raised $25m in a Series B round in April 2016 (see Onfido checks in $25m funding to check out US market) following prior rounds which totalled over $5m.

Onfido’s business model is ‘pay as you go’ – businesses are charged for each ID check they perform and there is no minimum spend. However, I can’t find details on pricing levels, other than the fact that there’s a volume discount available for large businesses. Media reports put Onfido’s revenue growth at 500% p.a., one assumes off a small base.

One to watch.

The trend line for management consulting around digital change within SQS is rising (although it’s not necessarily linear as H1 results show) and positioned to become the growth engine for the business so it makes sense to build capability in this area. The quality assurance provider is doing exactly that with the tuck in acquisition of Double Consulting.

Valued at €10.5m, and with revenue of €6.63m for the year to December 2016, the Italian company (also present in Switzerland) provides consulting, IT and outsourcing services so it will slot into the SQS portfolio. It is described as “developing more effective methods and innovative solutions for its customers”. This will appeal to SQS who is working on improving the efficiency and profitability of its own service delivery. Double Consulting ticks several boxes: strengthening SQS’s solid position in financial services and insurance, supporting growth in European geographies and diversifying revenue as the digital shift continues, as well as giving the higher margin managed consulting business more exposure.

Interesting to observe that at Accenture, activity is starting to shift from strategy and consultancy to operations (see Accenture FY17: Digital technologies in ‘operations’ mode). This could be specific to Accenture or Accenture being ahead of the curve. SQS (and other suppliers) can continue to build their digital strategy business but need to keep a keen eye on the digital adoption pattern and what we expect will be the waves of movement between strategy and operations. 

I’ve had quite a ‘postbag’ since my post about the death of Len Taylor - the co-founder of Logica. David Mann, who was the 4th employee at Logica and took over from Philip Hughes and Len Taylor as CEO in 1987, wrote to me with his thoughts on Len which I have added to my article on the website. www.archivesit.org.uk recently undertook an interview with David which you can access here

Several people emailed about this photograph. Len’s son tells me it was taken in 1958 when Len was involved with the Hawker-Siddeley Nuclear Power Company. I had always associated Hawker Siddeley with aircraft and cars. But a Google search does indeed report their involvement in nuclear power at the time at Langley (Bucks) with their Jason (of the Argonauts) reactor. See New Scientist March 1959.  If anyone has any more information - or knows exactly what Len was operating in the photo - please drop me a line. 

I don’t mind admitting that I am a bit obsessed with Elon Musk. I find watching the Falcon9 rocket returning to earth - which it has now done successfully 16 times - quite addictive.

There are many people who make predictions - I am one of them. There are few who then attempt to make them happen. Even fewer who succeed. Elon Musk is firmly in the latter category. When he says something will happen, it will. Albeit perhaps not in the timescales Musk predicts.

So take his speech to the International Astronautical Congress in Australia last week seriously. He reckons he will have cargo ships flying in Mars by 2022 and manned orbital flights by 2024. They  will start to build the infrastructure for manned expeditions to the surface by the 2030s    In typical Musk fashion he is building a BFR (Big F***ing Rocket) to carry crews. The reusable BFR - a 350ft monster rocket powered by 31 Raptor engines - will carry 100 people in 40 cabins. Musk has already tested the Raptor engines. The BFR will also deliver cargo and humans to the Moon and also take you anywhere on earth within 60 minutes. Indeed London to New York in 29 minutes is promised.

Sounds all a bit Douglas Adams? Sure. As I said Musk almost always misses his deadlines. However, he almost always makes them in the end.

Mars here we come on a BFR!

Another pretty stonking month for tech stocks. NASDAQ was up another 1.1% in Sept - so that’s a 20%+ rise YTD. The FTSE100 has only risen 3.2% YTD. So you can see that tech really was ‘the place to do’.

The only thing that came close to this was the FTSE SCS Index - which is the closest to the UK HQed stocks that we follow - was up 4.7% in Sept and 16% YTD. The FTSE Fixed Line Telecomms Index is down 21% YTD - mainly as a result of BT’s pretty disastrous performance in 2017 - down 3% in Sept and down 23% YTD.

Perhaps it isn’t a surprise that Aveva was the #1 riser this month - up nearly 26% in Sept and 30% YTD  - as result of that finally successful bid from Schneider. See Aviva - ‘Best performing share of the millennium’ - finally falls to Schneider.NCC Group did pretty well too with a 16% rise  in Sept (20% YTD). It’s been a painful year. See NCC Group: battered but not broken.  No new CEO announced…yet. Alfa Financial Group - See Alfa Financial motoring along since IPO - has had a great run since its IPO in May @ 325p. They closed out Sept at 506p - ie up 56% since IPO and up 12% in Sept. Good on them!

A ‘Shout out’ to Sophos. Their 9% rise in Sept means a 110% rise YTD. A fantastic performance from a premier UK HQed software player. See Revised Sophos outlook shows secutity strength in depth.

At the other end of the scale, Digital Barriers ended Sept down 29% (47% YTD). See Digital Barriers to sell video business after disappointing FY17. How many times have we written about disappointing results from Digital Barriers? A continuing disappointment.

Despite Better than expected Q3 from HPE globally HPE continues to disappoint - down another 19% in Sept (down 36% YTD). The reception to the new Apple smartphone range was hardly ecstatic. See Apple launches iPhone X. Apple has fallen 6% since the announcement but is still up 33% YTD.  

Despite continued gaines in the 'Holway Portfolio', I still feel very nervious...