Talking Tech

George and Ian catch up on recent news and events in UK small and mid-cap tech and discuss the (limited) SaaSpocalypse scenarios for Cerillion, DotDigital and GB Group – a few of the UK listeds that have been seen their share prices caught in the crossfire.   Cerillion might look to techies to be an easy AI technical target its business model, market position and end customer knowledge give it a m...

George and Ian  consider the Saint Valentine’s day tech massacre.  In face of the carnage, we take a step back and remember that writing software is only part of the story.  You need to plan, develop, test, sell and maintain. AI is untested in customer support for AI and much else besides. We have flashbacks to when Open Source became a thing and look to the SaaS transition and lessons learned and...

George and Ian take comfort from FY25 trading updates but look forward to a year in which reality may bite back.   Trading updates from Raspberry Pi, and news flow from Intel and Samsung, remind us that things rarely happen as smoothly or as predictably in real world tech as is hoped – particularly in semiconductors.   Computacenter’s update has confirmed George’s view on hardware sales and serves...

Ian and George  wish ChatGPT a Happy Birthday before cantering through recent UK small tech updates.   ActiveOps – going well but could short term brokers and metric obsessed fund managers stop this little gem from reaching its full potential   Cerillion – a pause for breath year, still well positioned, cash generative with excellent margins   GBG – it is going to be hard work but the management l...

George and Ian catch up on the news and events affecting UK-listed tech companies. George and Ian consider Sage’s recent full-year results and where it can go from here. Its cloud-based US acquisition Intacct, has shown what can be done, but is Sage condemned to a life in the slow lane by its parochial home market’s love of yield and misunderstanding of growth.   They also ponder the challenges th...

George and Ian catch up on the news and events affecting UK-listed tech companies. Rightmove’s share price reaction to management’s decision to accelerate its investment in AI suggests that the market is not comfortable with AI and is in bear case hunt mode. Looking at Rightmove, Trainline, Autotrader et al. it is clear that AI is going to make a difference, but it is not changing that many busine...

George and Ian catch up on news around the UK small and mid-cap listed tech space. Picking up on concerns about the challenges AgenticAI from our last podcast, George highlights Forrester’s forecast that next year 40% of AgenticAI projects will be cancelled. On UK companies we have Dotdigital and Advanced AdvT contrasting growth by acquisition styles, with a quick reflection on GBG. (Platform vs m...

The big, big question facing everyone is how do you make an original comment about the AI bubble.    Ian and George tack away from Cisco vs Nvidia and nonsense PE comparisons and revisit ‘F’d Companies spectacular dot-com flameouts’ - the basis for Ian’s recent blog, looking for real lessons and how not to avoid post-bubble mistakes.   Key points are:   Dotcom was lots of relatively small things a...

George and Ian catch up on events in and around the UK small and mid-cap listed tech. Big Beautiful Trade Prosperity deal – George tries to put in it some kind of context vs the scale of what is happening elsewhere. Has the UK sold its soul or did that really happen years ago?  Look to the positive and question Germany’s and France’s position.   Then Oracle – the big jump. The whole world now know...

UK vs US tech valuations – reflecting on wider and individual stocks.  Looking at several leading UK tech stocks, including Computacenter, Raspberry Pi and Kainos, George examines the ‘p/e discount’ issue but it’s clearly more nuanced than just growth.  Ian  questions why it takes so long for the UK market to trust and understand new tech stocks. Results from Computacenter with George looking to t...

George and Ian catch up on US giants results, reflecting on very different approaches and perhaps outlooks, before considering whether the IPO noise is consistent with the share price performance of UK tech stocks. Microsoft - AI reality, talk of returns on its own investment on AI but no real idea on those of its customers. George argues that it’s the best placed and bemoans the lowly valuation. ...

This week George and Ian canter through the newsflow of recent weeks, Bytes, Accesso, Northcoders and Hostelworld.    Is Bytes broken? No, but its reputation has taken another beating.    Hostelworld’s direct marketing expense reminds us why many startups sometimes feel they are just working for Google.   Reflecting on Salesforce’s recent wins with the US government, George looks back upon the Eff...

George and Ian catch up on events in and around the UK small and mid-cap listed tech. Visma – potential London IPO.  Parallels with Sage are inevitable. Visma has grown through acquisition but still delivers on organic growth. It does not, however, scale per the SaaS storybook. A judgement in store not just for London vs the world but PE valuations vs reality and analysis too?    IP Group capital...

George and Ian wish AIM a Happy 30th Birthday, consider its success and follow Charlie Munger’s edict of ‘invert, always invert’ to gain some context.   1,700 companies on AIM in 2007 was too many (polite way to say it), but 700 now is too few.    The politically impossible bail out is not the answer, but what can be done for little cost and risk to the public purse? Perhaps if we make it more pro...

George and Ian catch up on events in and around the UK small and mid-cap listed tech. London Tech Week - George has been out and about and is enthused about by the talk by Gary Turner and Steve Vamas of Xero fame. More LSE departures - To read the eulogies you would think that Ricardo was the greater success story. Ricardo was just easy to explain and love. Spectris was a bit of an effort to under...

George and Ian catch up on events in and around the UK small and mid-cap listed tech. Looking to the US, Salesforce and C3.ai results show positive momentum for AI, as of course do Nvidia’s. But investors are asking more questions and AI vs. Economic Downturn is a match that’s difficult to call.   Ian is more immediately concerned about the impact of US government actions to curtail sales into Chi...

George and Ian consider Sage’s results and the return of the normal share price path following results. George points to Xero as Sage’s rain cloud whilst Ian points to the success of Sage’s Intacct offering.   Gamma’s AGM statement contained comments in the UK market that led to a share price fall, although the progress in Germany is something that the market should not ignore.   Tech and defence...

George and Ian catch up on news and events affecting UK small and mid-cap tech.  IBM’s figures get George pondering the differing paths with AI for software vs IT professional services. He highlights the Asian IT services area, where growth is notably better than in the EU or North America, before looking at results from ActiveOps, GB Group and iOmart. Ian comments on Oxford Metrics’ in-line updat...

George and Ian catch up on events in and around the UK small and mid-cap listed tech.   Alphawave’s lack of guidance for 2025 is no great surprise, but in an industry as complex as semiconductors can anyone take forecasts seriously.  Ensilica’s recent newsflow suggests not. We can, however, confidently predict that the forecasts are wrong.   Kainos is steadier than it was, but do the cuts mean tha...

George and Ian catch up on the jumble of news, both good and bad, for UK-listed tech. Pinewood. AI and Raspberry Pi deliver – although inventory build at Raspberry Pi is an issue that must be monitored. BIG Technologies and the broken small and mid-cap due diligence stack. Whilst there’s still an interesting business, there is a far more interesting story that highlights how share-based remunerati...

Ian and George catch up on small and mid-cap tech news.  George has been looking at some resilient and upbeat news from smaller less well-known players SRT, Xaar and Microlise and is still recovering from the not too surprising news that Computacenter has not delivered its 20th year of earnings growth.   Gamma results have encouraged Ian and whilst enthused by Judges Scientific as a company he is...

George and Ian catch up on tech as it impacts UK small and mid-caps.   Recent events have seen the US market, and US tech and smaller stocks in particular, backtrace whilst UK’s Techmark index has gone up 5% since the start of the year.  Perhaps showing its worth as a shelter in times of trouble?   George updates on recent recruitment sector news, not great, but reminds us that elsewhere individua...

George updates us on PLC awards winners – all well deserved and fingers crossed for none of those traditional subsequent share price declines. Ian looks at the strategic reasons for PINE Pinewood's acquisition of Seez and the issue of where the value really lies in AI. Should investors be calling the quality of the acquisition decision now? This leads George onto how AI is impacting the tech servi...

This week George and Ian catch up on recent tech newsflow and consider its impact on the UK small and mid-cap tech stocks. George scans the wider market and whilst somewhat downbeat on the fact that the big boys in IT services are struggling to get back to where they were before the pandemic, at least in the UK the government looks to be spending some of the money it hasn’t got on tech – giving so...

George and Ian discuss recent results and look at more detail at Oxford Metrics and FD Technologies. Oxford Metrics (OMG) has faced head winds as it returns to ‘normal’ after the pandemic and supply chain issues. But it also now has the opportunity in smart manufacturing. Historically Oxford Metrics has had strong positions in relatively small global markets, the move into smart manufacturing offe...