Comms Dealer

Comms and IT industry footballers from all over the UK will get the chance to show their skills at the Comms Dealer national five-a-side football tournament which returns this spring.

Once again sponsored by Nine Wholesale, the legendary tournament will take place on April 27th at the Goals Soccer venue in Leicester and all the proceeds will go to children's charity Sparks, which now has a close tie up with the famous Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

"Nine are kindly funding the venue, the referees, trophies and post tournament refreshments so all we need now is teams to raise a bumper sum for Sparks!" said Comms Dealer Editorial Director Nigel Sergent.

"We used to run the event in September, but it's such a busy time of the year after the summer holidays we have decided to move it to the spring to encourage more teams to enter. It's a great event and has been much enjoyed by industry teams in the past so we're aiming to get our best ever turn out."

Team places are priced at £295 per team and £500 for two. To register go to: http://www.sparks.org.uk/event/comms-dealer-5aside-football/

Pictured above: The Nine Group team 

Microsoft has awarded TeleWare Gold Cloud Platform competency in recognition of big strides made towards pure cloud comms.

The upgrade from Silver status follows TeleWare's achievement in recording and analysing a call made completely through the Microsoft Azure platform, a world first.

Another world first was achieved when TeleWare completely migrated fixed line recording to the cloud.

TeleWare CEO Steve Haworth said: "We have worked closely with Microsoft for many years and have gained a range of Gold and Silver competencies.

"This is essential as it forms part of our strategic plan to demonstrate our leadership position in cloud communications."

Storage infrastructure and security company MTI is under new ownership following its acquisition by ex-owner of Trustmarque Endless. The EMC partner boasts £70m turnover and was sold by US-based private equity firm Garnet and Helfrich Capital for an undisclosed sum.

MTI is headquartered in Godalming and operates mainly in the UK, Germany and France. Its services include on-site and cloud-based storage, security solutions and IaaS. 

MTI CEO Keith Clark said: "Endless' ownership of MTI Europe will allow the business to grow organically and through further acquisitions over the coming months."

Ed Ransome, Investment Director at Endless who led the transaction, commented: "Endless has a strong appetite to invest in profitable businesses which operate across Europe. 

"MTI has generated strong profits for many years and we will support Mike and his team in taking the business to a new era of growth through both organic means and from pursuing add-ons."

"While Brexit has brought uncertainty to investors and owners of UK companies, we continue to pursue overlooked assets which possess underlying, latent value. 

"We believe there will be significant opportunities for us to invest further in such businesses in 2017."

The deal is Endless' eighth investment from its £525m Fund IV and follows the exits of Trustmarque, Liberata, Chaucer Foods and West Cornwall Pasty Company.

Gamma leaders and partners are set to take centre stage at the comms provider's theatre themed 2017 roadshow which rolls out under the banner 'Much Ado About Gamma'.

Previous themed roadshows have been hosted in stately homes, museums, universities and castles. This year's events will be staged at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow (28th February), The Lowry in Manchester (1st March), The Hippodrome in Birmingham (7th March) and London's The Barbican (8th March).

Gamma MD Daryl Pile said: "Feedback from our partners plays a vital role in helping us remain ahead of the curve and shape our roadmap specifically for the channel." Our annual roadshow gives us a unique opportunity to spend time and catch up with our channel partners."

http://content.gamma.co.uk/gamma-roadshow-2017

Distributor DMSL has signed 50-plus Vonage resellers in four months in a recruitment drive that's set to accelerate this year.

DMSL linked up with the cloud VoIP provider in September and set about building a network of resellers to push sales of B2B hosted voice services primarily in the small business sector. The company hopes to enlist up to 100 additional resellers in 2017.
 
"We need more resellers to fully exploit the potential," said DMSL MD John Carter. "Interest in VoIP is soaring, so now is the right time to get on board and grasp the opportunity."

Marketing is too often the black hole of a channel business's strategy, operating in the dark and plagued by spurious planning, claims Bowan Arrow Managing Director Andy Grant who advocates a far more holistic and strategic approach.

The essence of any cutting-edge marketing strategy is valid planning and genuine consistency, argues Grant, who urges channel marketers to play the long game and align their strategy to the overall business plan and the flow of time. As Grant has shown, a short-lived marketing campaign that is misaligned to the bigger picture and carried out in isolation is a contradiction in terms. "Marketing is not a quick win activity, and you can't turn it on and off overnight," he stated. "Marketing needs to be planned, budgeted and forecast just like any other departmental activity. The marketing strategy should link seamlessly to the overall business plan. But I've seen vendors and partners chop and change tactics in a bid to manufacture positive RoI, and marketing campaigns are often dismissed because they don't bring immediate results."

Too many channel players market themselves in similar ways, often using the same generic terms to describe their business and the services they offer. But their biggest opportunity is to ensure their brand connects with its audience and differentiates from the competition. "Shout from the roof tops about your business and why you are the best at what you do," said Grant. "But it needs to be a planned and consistent message. Marketing is not a short-term fix, it contributes to the business by achieving its aims over time."

In a comms market populated by companies offering similar solutions, channel businesses need to think outside the traditional marketing box to stand out. "Positive PR stories, specialised events, industry award recognition and wins, particularly for complex solution deployments will differentiate a business tremendously," commented Grant. "It gives a business a reason to reach out and tell target prospects why they should consider their solutions and services."

Rehashing the same marketing mistakes delays the key role that digital should play in opening up opportunities to influence potential customers. Digital holds much promise for channel marketers, but is it delivering as a branding vehicle? "Yes, it delivers because B2B brands need to create awareness and a reputation that first differentiates them from the competition but more importantly maintains a consistent relationship with all audiences," explained Grant. "This can be achieved quickly and monitored daily using digital communication channels and monitoring tools, most of which are free. Therefore, a digital content marketing plan is of vital importance for attracting and retaining customers in 2017 and beyond. Digital should be at the forefront of marketing efforts."

Grant says all channel businesses should concentrate on three or four of the major social media channels to build their brand and create awareness. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram which is becoming increasingly popular. "We help our clients to develop a monthly social media plan that schedules posts of relevant content across those channels," he explained. "YouTube should also be considered. Although it's not a primary driving force for demand creation it does raise some awareness."

Community building in a social media environment requires time, energy, content, and most importantly resources, and if the activity is not monitored it could be a drain on resources. "The best way to improve interactions via social media platforms is to identify and document ideal customer or customer types," added Grant. "When these 'customer avatars' have been created it is time to start planning, designing and creating content that interests, educates and informs. Social media platforms are designed for sharing information that readers will find educational and useful enough to form part of their research. These platforms are not designed for direct selling."

Many channel players are now leading with a hosted, hybrid or SaaS solution, but this is often not represented in their brand, website and the way they communicate with customers and prospects, pointed out Grant. He also noted that new research by Adobe suggests that 76 per cent of people feel that marketing has changed more in the past two years than in the previous 50. "A brand needs to be maintained and needs constant re-adjustment to ensure that the audience understands what is offered and how that business can in turn help their business," said Grant.

Bringing the marketing department into the wider strategic mix is a clever move, but a lack of channel marketing experience and skills could jeopardise progress. This is where specialists like Bowan Arrow come into their own. "We help vendors and partners to make the most of their MDF funds and create better shared returns," said Grant. "Partners who understand the full extent of the funds available from their various vendors could add more than 50 per cent to their annual marketing budget. Once we have established what funds are available and the types of activities that can be funded, we discuss the strategic vision and develop a plan."

As already mentioned, research indicates that the nature of smart marketing today is almost unrecognisable compared to just two years ago. One example of this transformation is next-generation data management and targeting called predictive marketing, which is more science than Mystic Meg. "This technology uses customer data that helps to predict which customers and prospects are most likely to buy, and enables marketers to identify channels and tailor content to increase engagement and sales," commented Grant.

"The best results always come from thoroughly analysed, planned and budgeted long-term marketing activities that move with the times and are fully understood by all employees, and create genuine results in terms of new clients, greater market share and revenue increases. Helping clients to improve the yield of their marketing activities using technology is a win-win situation."•

About Bowan Arrow
Andy Grant's previous industry experience includes handling national accounts for Microsoft, Iomega and 3Com while working for Australia's top field marketing agency in the '90s. He moved to the UK in 2000 and was enlisted by Lucent (which became Avaya). He then joined Nortel in 2007 and struck out on his own two years later to set up Bowan Arrow as an independent B2B channel marketing consultancy with marketers and designers based across the UK. Grant works with his wife, Louise, who has channel and programme management experience having worked for tech giants Polycom, Avaya, 3Com and IBM.

Kyocera's acquisition of Annodata extends the capabilities of both companies in a deal that also ensures the Herts-based managed services provider retains strategic and operational independence, explains Annodata's co-founder Andrew Harman.

Established almost 30 years ago by Andrew and Tim Harman, Annodata has become one of the UK's biggest providers of managed print services with an impressive list of blue chip clients and partnerships with some of the largest vendors in the industry. According to Harman, the time had come to take the business into the next phase of development. "Kyocera's investment and expertise will enable us to continue our growth trajectory," he said. "This will bring new opportunities for staff for career progression, and for clients who will benefit from being part of a larger organisation."

Annodata's revenues currently stand at over £70 million, up from £57.3 million in July 2014, and the employee headcount currently stands at over 340 which has almost doubled in the last few years. Profitability has also seen healthy increases, up by over 91 per cent during the past four years due in part to Annodata's focus on high value managed services. This increase in profitability has secured the company 24th position in The Sunday Times BDO Profit Track 100 2016, one of only a handful of IT services companies to have made the grade.

Annodata has worked with Kyocera for a number of years but what tipped the balance in terms of selling was that the acquisition would allow the firm to continue independently while gaining access to the additional resources of Kyocera Corporation. "We had interest from a number of different organisations ranging from venture capital firms through to trade buyers, but it was vitally important to us that we chose a company that continued and upheld Annodata's legacy," explained Harman. "With Kyocera's investment we believe that we are well positioned to capitalise on market trends and grow our business further."

Annodata will operate as a separate business entity to Kyocera Document Solutions UK, with its own independent strategy and management team. "Our independence is important to us, and also to Kyocera, so that won't change," confirmed Harman. "Annodata's management team has a wealth of experience dealing directly with customers in almost every vertical, both here in the UK and also on a global basis. Remember, although our organisation is solely UK-based, we support and deliver services across Europe, EMEA and ASIA. That comes as a huge benefit to Kyocera and supports its proposition well."

The acquisition has been well received by staff, although it did come as a surprise to some, noted Harman. "Nonetheless, it comes as a good piece of news as it puts us in a stronger position against our competitors and allows us to drive investment in further training and developing our staff," he added. "There are absolutely no plans to reduce the number of Annodata employees as a part of this transaction and we're currently recruiting in excess of 18 new members of staff. Our customers and our people will be the top priorities for Annodata post-acquisition. Without them, what do we have?"

There will be no changes to the leadership team, confirmed Harman. Rod Tonna-Barthet will continue as CEO working alongside the wider management team. As well as this, Harman and his brother Tim will also continue to guide and support the management team where required. "I will focus on shaping company strategy, overseeing major investments and continue to work with several of our largest and most strategic customers and partners," noted Harman.

"Annodata has formed strong direct customer relationships over three decades and this experience is something Kyocera will stand to benefit from. We can support regional players with our nationwide coverage, and going forward we will be able to complement the dealer channel to strengthen the Kyocera proposition with our established and national ICT services portfolio."

Cloud is also a big focus for Annodata and a core component of its corporate strategy. "While cloud does increase stickiness with customers, for us, it's more about enabling our customers to consume IT in the ways that they want to," said Harman. "Many IT directors and IT departments as a whole are extremely busy with resources stretched to breaking point. Organisations such as Annodata can help those customers deal with non-core services, offering expert advice and consultation along with access to the latest technology."

In terms of challenges, the IT skills shortage in the UK is a major obstacle for the channel as many specialised IT skills are in short supply, meaning that finding the right staff can be challenging. For resellers in particular, having the relevant technical skills are an important factor in their preparedness to succeed in 2017 and beyond. Although this challenge has not impeded Annodata's growth, it is one that is fully understood by Harman.

"We have been sure to make the right investment in people to enable us to take a consultative approach with our customers," added Harman. "To this end, we have invested heavily in an accredited Sales Academy to drive awareness and skills among our sales people about cloud, connectivity, UC, mobile, infrastructure and support services. We also work alongside our partners to ensure that all staff have the correct level of knowledge and expertise."

According to Harman, the greatest growth potential comes from existing customers. "A major part of our success lies in the fact that we are able to supply one of the broadest range of services in the market, allowing us to establish deeper relationships with customers as they streamline the number of suppliers they work with," he noted. "This means that our customers have a single point of contact for their ICT estates, significantly easing their management of ICT. Post-acquisition, we will continue to focus on meeting the diverse needs of our customers."

Over two years ago Annodata acquired a well established IT services company to help broaden its services portfolio. Now the market is rapidly consolidating around a number of significant players and Harman believes that Annodata will be one of them. "Customers want to work with partners, not just suppliers, who can help them with a wide range of technology requirements and enable them to grow," added Harman. "Annodata has a strong heritage in print, communications and IT - and with Kyocera's long reach, investment and experience, we're in a strong position to expand our footprint in the UK and perhaps further afield."

It is one thing to talk-up data security as a priority, it is another to pass the ultimate test and achieve ISO27001 certification. Here, Union Street's COO José Fernandez provides a plan of action for channel companies wanting to implement ISO.

While ISO27001 certification is widely considered to be the benchmark for standards in data security, it can be an uphill struggle for many organisations to achieve. Enter Union Street's José Fernandez, who joined the company 13 months ago with a remit to implement ISO27001. Having established a well thought out formula for success Fernandez recorded a triumph when the company was certified in October. Gaining ISO27001 certification demonstrates a company's commitment to information security and confirms that it has established robust processes for data protection. In many cases, having the certification can be a prerequisite for trading with enterprise level clients. So here's Fernandez' roadmap to gaining ISO27001 status:

Purpose
Before you can begin implementing ISO27001 the senior stakeholders in your business must believe in its aims and understand the benefits of the project. It requires support from the top. We had a number of objectives. These included improving our data security, ensuring that we are doing everything possible to protect partners' data, making sure all staff work in a secure manner and that our products and services meet the latest security standards. Implementing a sound best-practice framework for ensuring risk and data security is at the forefront of our minds.

Cost
It's important to create a budget. You need to be comfortable with the cost of completing the certification. Time spent upfront fleshing out the costs and getting approval from your finance team will make the journey easier. It will also ensure surprises are kept to a minimum. The costs you need to consider are related to training, audit and certification, external consultancy, increased IT spend and penetration testing. IT spend is probably the trickiest to predict but don't be put off by this prospect as most modern organisations will find themselves in a good place already.

Focus
To complete any major project you need focus. It has to be someone's day job to get the project done. We created a new role and appointed an internal Standards and Security Officer (SSO). The SSO quickly created a detailed project plan with key milestones, set up a project board and a risk committee made up of 'risk owners' from the various parts of the business. Assigning risk owners early was instrumental to the success of the project. It created accountability.

Document framework
Create a document framework that is simple, clear, and most importantly easy to use. No one wants to read a 50 page policy on cryptographic key management when a clear one page document will suffice. We created too much documentation at first but scaled it down to something more user friendly as we got our heads around what was needed. There are plenty of document toolkits out there to get you started.

Educate
You have to start at the beginning. Sounds obvious but if you miss this stage it's difficult to get people to understand where you're going. If the project appears to have no relevance to staff they simply carry on doing what they've always done. We started by running internal workshops to get the message across. We split these into two key areas: Why is data security important and what simple things can we do to improve it?

Empower
By creating a framework for risk identification and improvement, and ensuring everyone in the company knows how to use it, we made sure that everyone had a role to play in ISO27001. This is ongoing and probably the most important element of what we do today. Ask yourself this question: Can anyone identify a security risk (or any other type of business risk for that matter) and does everyone have a clear way of improving the way they work?

Consistency
Once we had documented our policies, processes and procedures we created department or role specific training based on that material. There is no point in going to the trouble of writing up your business processes if no one uses them. Train people and empower them to improve and refine the processes they use every day - always with data security in mind.

Friend or foe?
Auditors are your friends, so welcome them with open arms and embrace their findings. We approached all of our external audits with this mindset. It will help you to stay relaxed with the process and to appreciate that their suggestions can, and should, be used to improve your business.

Conclusion
We've experienced positive benefits having implemented ISO27001. We now develop our products with security in mind. We think about security throughout the development and testing process, and carry out external tests to make sure customer data can't be compromised. This gives us a competitive edge and provides peace of mind to our partners. Best of all, we now have clear documented working practices with an avenue for continual service improvement, something everyone in the business can contribute towards. •

As long as resellers consider leasing as a last resort missed opportunities will be endemic in the channel, according to Julie Henehan, Sales Director at PEAC (Pan European Asset Company).

Among the lasting lessons that can be drawn from our discussion with Henehan is that old concepts of leasing in the comms and IT sector require fresh ways of thinking or resellers could find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. She says the best course of action for resellers is to reconsider traditional attitudes towards finance and redress the imbalance between the comms sector and other industries where the benefits of leasing are reaped with enthusiasm. That said, comms and IT resellers, so often off the finance message, are starting to get the leasing lowdown and act on the good advice of experts such as PEAC (which is engaged with almost 150 UK IT and comms resellers and manages the Avaya Financial Services programme).

"The IT and telecoms channel has traditionally delivered low leasing penetration," said Henehan. "Most times, leasing was only used when requested by the customer. Today, more partners understand the importance of offering finance to customers who need equipment to enhance their business performance. This is an ongoing process of education and raising awareness. But there's a long way to go before we see the penetration levels achieved in other markets."

The outcome of current trends in ICT procurement are likely to be driven by the evolving preferences of end user buyers and a growing number of resellers who readily build leasing into their modern day propositions. "There is a move away from traditional equipment sales with hardware becoming just a part of an overall solution rather than making up 70-plus per cent of the sale," added Henehan. "The structured payment terms of a subscription can easily be matched to a lease rental which is ideal following the rise of 'as-a-service' solutions in the market. This has driven greater adoption and created the need to develop funding models for intangibles such as whole software and hosted solutions, moving from a straight cash loan to a more sophisticated leasing approach that matches the subscription payments to the lease rentals."

As intangible solutions become a dominant feature in resellers' product portfolios the emphasis will move further away from traditional selling and installation towards a consultative approach, providing value added services on top of the diminishing levels of hardware relative to the overall customer project. "Leasing plays an important part in this consultancy process, driving a different and valuable dialogue around the customer's short, medium and long-term plans and financial budgets, as well as the anticipated impact of planned investments," noted Henehan. "This enables resellers to offer alternative and competitive payment solutions that are aligned with the customer's acquisition strategy, positioning the reseller as a trusted advisor and differentiating their offering."

Henehan cited figures from the Finance and Leasing Association that suggest the UK ICT leasing market was worth £2.3 billion in 2015. With numbers such as this, it is a wonder that leasing has not gone viral in the ICT sector. Low interest rates and an uncertain economy have helped to stimulate this growth, putting a brighter spotlight on the traditional benefits of leasing as an alternative source of funding, with the ability to fix repayments for the term of the lease becoming a more influential factor in rising adoption rates.

The leasing industry has also witnessed the retrenchment of some big global players, leaving independent finance companies such as PEAC to fill the vacuum. Although a new name in the leasing market PEAC brings strong experience in the IT and telecoms space and has worked with many of its partners for over 10 years. "Our organisational structure means that we are agile and quickly adapt to changing market conditions," commented Henehan. "As technology evolves we are constantly reviewing the assets that we fund, with the term 'asset' becoming less and less relevant to the IT and comms market with the move into the cloud and IoT."

PEAC acts as a finance partner to its reseller community, helping them and their customers to finance as much of the project as possible, thereby simplifying the acquisition process. "It is important for partners to combine as much of the hardware and project costs into the lease as possible, to include software, up-front training, consultancy and cabling as well as the hardware element," advised Henehan.

"Operating in the financial services market is not, as a rule, a core area of expertise among resellers, so we have developed operational guidance which details key areas of compliance in simple terms. Our partners also get instant online credit decisions, same day payments, electronic documentation and e-sign, supported by a team that understands the market."

Henehan believes that resellers who act against the wider demand for leasing risk putting themselves at a disadvantage that could jeopardise their progress. To any reseller, leasing is a gift. It is cash in the bank today rather than postponed payments tomorrow. "Leasing allows resellers to be paid up front for the total solution, and PEAC funds them the same day," said Henehan. "We urge resellers to fully embrace the benefits of leasing and encourage them to highlight financing options early in the sales cycle in all of their proposals. Leasing doesn't just mean a structured payment plan. Our most successful relationships are built on the foundation of understanding the lease cycle and making the most of upgrade opportunities."•

Philip Carse, Analyst at Megabuyte.com, reports on the recent performance of leading companies in the comms space during the last quarter.

While there were several private equity deals in the sector over the summer (such as Lyceum/Sabio, GCP/Arrow, Beech Tree/Wavenet), the more recent interesting corporate activity has involved M&A, particularly Daisy's agreed £185m/9.6x current EBITDA bid for Alternative Networks and Metronet's £48m/8x acquisition of M247. While these are trade deals, both buyers are PE backed and have used debt funding for a major part of their deals.

So how does the Daisy deal change the B2B supplier landscape? We estimate that Daisy and Alternative today have about a 3.1% and 0.8% share of the UK's £19 billion B2B comms market respectively (though less if one also included the similarly multi-billion UK IT services market). The deal elevates the combined business to about £720-730 million revenues, or about a 3.9% market share. It also moves Daisy above Virgin to behind Arqiva, though the latter with its mobile and TV masts and broadcast transmission is a very different business to Daisy. In pure business comms and IT services terms, we estimate that Daisy is now fourth behind BTEE, Vodafone and O2.

Meanwhile, the pick of the bunch of recent results and updates, for all the wrong reasons, are Alternative Networks' third profit warning in 12 months, a major accounting issue at Redcentric, TalkTalk admitting what all the City analysts already knew, that full year EBITDA would be at the low end of guidance, and more dire results from PCCW-backed wireless broadband provider UK Broadband.

Alternative Networks reported on its year to forget, with EBITDA down 17% to £18.4 million on revenues down 8% to £135.8 million for the year to September 2016. As the details show, the year was derailed by non-EU roaming and Advanced Solutions' non-recurring revenue weakness, offsetting some good progress in mobile subscribers, connectivity and hosted desktop. With a better second half than the first (EBITDA down 27% on revenues down 4%), the outlook is reasonably positive.

In somewhat of a shocking statement, AIM-listed managed IT services provider Redcentric announced in November that historic accounting misstatements over several years have overstated net assets by at least £10 million, while net debt is nearer £30 million than the high teens implied by an earlier trading update. The company does not appear to be in any fundamental danger given that the higher and more accurate net debt of £30 million is still only just over 1x full year EBITDA, but it will clearly need to regain the trust of its bankers and shareholders.

TalkTalk reported first half to September 2017 EBITDA up 44% to £130 million on revenues down 1.1% at £902 million, within which corporate was strong at a carrier driven +11% to £208 million (underlying +2.3%). With a sense of déjá vu the company now expects full year EBITDA to be at the bottom end of the £320-360 million range, though the city had already guessed this given current consensus of £318 million.

KCOM announced first half 2016/17 EBITDA down 14% to £32.0 million on revenues down 7.1% at £165.3 million, partly reflecting increased costs following the sale of its national network to CityFibre and lower spending on the major HMRC project. The results can best be described as reflecting a period of transformation for KCOM as the company starts to reinvest some of the £90 million received from CityFibre for its national network into its Hull fibre network and enterprise national business.

Adept Telecom reported interim revenues up 19% to £16.5 million, although the majority of this growth came from the five month contribution of Comms Group, with adjusted EBITDA up 20% to £3.5 million. Adept also revealed the £2.0m/1.5x 2015 sales acquisition of CAT Communications, further strengthening its Avaya presence.

Accounts to April 2016 from Excell Group showed a second year of solid growth with EBITDA up 23% to £3.0 million on revenues up 10% to £30.0 million, with exemplary operating cashflow. However, the fireworks are happening this year off the back of a major contract with Workspace Group and an acquisition. In contrast, accounts to January 2016 from BGF-backed mobile-cum-unified comms service provider Olive Communications showed a poor year, with revenues down marginally at £28.6 million, a one third decline in estimated EBITDA to £3.1 million and substantial cash outflows.

The overdue 2015 accounts for PCCW-backed wireless broadband operator UK Broadband showed yet another poor cash-guzzling year, with EBITDA losses up 6% at £17.2 million on revenues up 114% at £3.3 million, with the company's Relish 4G product yet to deliver the goods.

Share price under-performance
Although telecoms and networks share prices broadly tracked both the Megabuyte universe and the FTSE All-Share over the last three months, with a decline of 2.4%, the peer group has under-performed considerably over the last year. The average one year decline of 0.7% compares with +8.5% for the FTSE All-Share and 15% for the broader Megabuyte universe in which software stocks have generally performed well. The major share price under-performer over the last three months is Redcentric, down 60% on its accounting issues. Alternative Networks is down 16%, but only after the shares jumped 18% on the Daisy bid announcement.

IS Research publishes www.megabuyte.com, a company analysis and intelligence service covering over 400 public and private UK technology companies.
philip.carse@megabuyte.com