Megabuyte - Technology sector intelligence

The Q3 IMS released by Computacenter this morning could hardly be more upbeat. Q3 seems to have been a strong period for the company on just about every front; product and services were ahead as were all three main geographies. Group revenues increased by 16% (in constant currencies) in Q3 to £621m bringing underlying year to date growth to a healthy 10%. Read our full review of the statement in Newswire Plus.

NCC makes decisive move in US

Software escrow and security testing player NCC Group has taken a decisive strategic step in the US market with the acquisition of iSEC Partners. With offices in San Francisco, Seattle and New York, iSEC provides manual, automated and managed security testing services for applications, networks, websites and databases. NCC is paying up to £14.4m for iSEC of which £8.1m is up front and up to £6.3m is payable over the next two years depending on performance. For the year to July 2010, iSEC generated EBIT of $2.4m on revenues of $7.8m. The acquisition, which is being funded by NCC’s existing cash resources and bank debt, will be immediately earnings enhancing. Read our analysis of the deal in Newswire Plus.

It’s a waiting game at Workplace

Workforce management software vendor and emerging SaaS play Workplace Systems has issued a rather cautious trading update highlighting continuing long sales cycles. As a result of these sales cycles, a couple of large orders have slipped into the company’s second half making which will make first half results look relatively weak. Workplace shares have more than doubled in the last year as investors have started to get excited about the SaaS story but, perhaps unsurprisingly, the stock has slipped back 10% this morning. Read our first thoughts on the statement in Newswire Plus.

Google lifts the lid on mobile advertising

Technology giant Google posted its thirds quarter results overnight, beating market expectations with 23% revenue and 32% net income growth. The company also gave one-off information on its mobile activities; mobile advertising revenues are now at a $1bn per annum run rate, whilst Android is already very profitable for Google. Read our review of the results and our thoughts on the Google’s mobile activities in Newswire Plus.

2e2 emerges stronger from a challenging year

2009 results from 2e2 Group report on a challenging year for the company but one from which we feel that it has emerged stronger and (even) more focussed. Indeed, trading has picked up again since the year end and, with the acquisition of Morse and the addition of Hutton Collins as a new investor (alongside Duke Street), 2e2 has already moved the game along substantially in 2010. In this analysis piece we will review 2e2’s 2009 results and look at how the Morse deal has changed the game for the company, both from a strategic and a corporate perspective. Premium subscribers can read the full piece here and Premium Plus subscribers can also view updated financial analysis on 2e2 here.