Megabuyte - Technology sector intelligence

Less than a week after Apple managed to offend most of its smartphone manufacturer competitors and had to give away a rubber case to enable people to avoid dropped calls on the new iPhone4, the company reported record results, exceeding market expectations. Revenues for the quarter to June rose 61% to $15.3bn, whilst quarterly profit rose 78% to $3.25bn. Cash grew $4bn to $46bn. iPhone revenues jumped 74% to $5.3m from 8.4m units, whilst the iPad generated a first time $2.2bn off 3.3m units. Even the existing PC business managed 31% growth, 40% for portables and 15% for desktops.  The company edges closer to becoming officially a mobile manufacturer, with the iPhone and iPad generating 48% of revenues, against 40% last quarter.  Last week’s PR disaster is unlikely to put much of a dent in the company’s strong momentum.

Revenue growth slowing for Allscripts-Misys

Allscripts-Misys, the healthcare arm of UK based software vendor Misys reported another strong quarter driven by implementation of electronic health records, but with the rate of revenue growth slowing. Revenue for Q4 2010 and FY 2010 was up 14% and 28% to $190.3 m and $704.5 m respectively, and the company is guiding $780-790m (+12%) for FY10.  The slowdown in growth in Q4 was driven by much slower growth in system sales and professional services. Misys recently announced the sale of most of its stake in Allscripts-Misys (Premium Plus readers see here), a move we applauded. Read more in Newswire Plus.

Promethean splashes some IPO cash

White-board supplier Promethean has splashed some of its £114m IPO cash on SynapticMash Inc, a start-up US education formative assessment software company. The company is paying $10m plus up to $3m extra over 18 months, dependent on achievement of staff retention and sales targets. Founded in 2007, SynapticMash’s learning management system, LearningQube, is described as transforming the way schools collect and manage classroom data, enabling teachers and administrators to better assess and track student performance.  It is now being sold into US schools on a subscription basis, and presumably is considered to have a bright future given that Promethean is paying 14x 2009’s $0.7m revenues. The shares are 7% down on the March IPO.

CSF profitable due to sale and leaseback

Malaysian data centre provider CSF, which also IPOd in March, has published its results to March 2010, showing 15% growth in revenues, with a significant shift away from data centre project work towards data centre rental income. Profits jumped significantly, though due to £7.7m profit on the sale and leaseback of the CX2 data centre.  The underlying macro situation remains very strong for data centres in South East Asia. CSF shares are 8% down on the March IPO. See Newswire Plus for more.

GB Group’s positive 1^st quarter

Identity specialist GB Group has published a positive, but cautious, IMS for the quarter to June 2010, with 12% growth in revenues to £5.6m, and operating profit almost doubling to £0.26m, though cash dipped back £0.1m to £5.2m.  The company has seen signs of improvement in the market, particularly for data solutions, slightly less so for authentification,  but the company also sounded a note of caution given the macro outlook and public sector spending cuts (more awake than CWW then!).  Read more in Newswire plus.

SSE Telecoms (Neos) has UK’s 4th largest telecoms network

We initiate coverage on SSE Telecoms, which is the new trading name for Neos Networks, and which purports to be the 4th largest telecoms network in the UK.  The company has 7,500km of fibre and 3,600km of microwave networks, nine metro networks, as well as recently acquired data centre capabilities, and with strong financial backing from parent Scottish and Southern Electricity is likely to become more high profile. Premium subscribers can read the full initiation note here and Premium Plus subscribers can view the full profile here.