It has just been announced that Microgen's 180p offer for Trace failed to get the required level of shareholder acceptances and has therefore lapsed. By the closing time today, Microgen had received acceptances from only 45.7% of shareholders.

Martyn Ratcliffe, Chairman of Microgen, said:

"The Microgen Increased Cash Offer represented a significant premium over any other offer made to Trace Shareholders and was unanimously recommended by the Independent Directors of Trace. It is disappointing and highly unusual that such a unanimously recommended offer was compromised by the undertaking provided by one of the Independent Directors to an ultimately unrecommended competing offer."

Tulip (the MBO vehicle bidding for Trace and intending to take it private) has also just announced that they had received acceptances for their 156p offer for 48.87% of the shares. however, they had bought 169,481 shares today in the market today. So, with them, they represented 50.06% and the offer has been "declared unconditiona in all respects".

It must be a bitter disappointment for Microgen and Ratcliffe in particular. He seems to get spurned too often. I never doubted the logic of the move on Trace. I just doubted Microgen's ability to generate organic growth from the coupling. Exactly what Microgen will do next is also questionable. If I was them, I'd start a sale process for the company right away - whether as a whole or in bits. Thereby returning as much as is possible to its shareholders.

I note that Steria shares are down 6.8% right now; valuing them at E808m. This compares with the E704m they are paying for Xansa. This will, almost without doubt, infect them with a serious dose of the old Acquisition Indigestion. Every company I have ever tracked who takes over a company worth >50% of its then market cap suffers the dreaded lergy. Usually takes 2-3 years to recover. Often leads to death (ie change of ownership for the buyer).
BTW, I've added "Don't eat exotic foreign food if you are not used to it" to my list of avoidance hints. "Little and often and nothing too spicy" is still the best advice in diet as well as M&A.

As most readers will know it was a torrid week on the Stock Exchanges worldwide. FTSE100 fell 5.62%. The pain was felt in the tech sector too with NASDAQ down 4.64%, Techmark down 4.4% and the FTSE SCS Index (the one that tracks Software and IT services stocks in the UK) down 4.9%. UK Telecom stocks fell 5.7% and European Telecom stocks were down 4.5%. Even the normally 'robust' Support Services sector fell 6.9% - wiping out all the gains for the year.

Early Monday morning, stocks continue to fall...

Further to the post on Friday, early this morning Steria was announced as the bidder for Xansa at 130p per share, valuing Xansa at £472m. that's a 70% premium to Xansa's close on Thursday.

Steria is a French IT services player with rev of E1.26m (£844m) in 2006. It had UK rev of £194m in 2006 compared to Xansa's £357m; all in the UK.

I have to admit that Steria was not on my list of likely bidders. I had hoped Xansa might find something nearer home! As it is, yet another of the oldest UK-owned IT services players falls into foreign ownership. Yet again it is French! I seem to have spent 20 years writing about the rape and pillage of the UK-owned sector. In 1985 nine out of the top ten suppliers of IT services to the UK market were UK-owned. Now it is exactly round the other way. Although Xansa (or FI Group as it was previously known) never figured in that Top Ten, it was the sole UK-owned entry in the £300m-£1m revenue tables. Saying that, Xansa seemed to be on every bodies 'hit' list of late. This intensified when Alistair Cox announced his departure recently to head Hays.
Steria says that the combined revenues of E1.8b puts them in the Top Ten in Europe. Not quite sure I'd agree! In the UK, c£560m combined revenues will not give them a Top Ten place according to my figures.

Also it's a big acquisition for Steria. Acquisition Indigestion is quite likely. Do Steria have top management of the caliber to handle this scale of acquisition?

I just wonder what dear Dame Hilary would have thought....

Xansa has announced that it is in "advanced bid talks" sendings its shares up over 35% and valuing the company at £362m.

Times Online said "Speculation about the suitor for the company, whose clients include Barclaycard, BT and Royal Mail, rested on Cap Gemini, the French IT group and LogicaCMG, the Anglo-Dutch IT services player. City sources also suggested that private equity players SilverLake and Permira could be involved. Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest outsourcer, was also named as a potential bidder. "

Well, for more years than I care to recall, Xansa has been on everyone's target list. Not surprising as Xansa, with 2006 sales of £357.3m, is one of the very few "mid-sized" UK IT Services companies left! Xansa makes all of its revenue from the UK (which makes it attractive to overseas bidders), has a very sizeable Indian presence (which makes it attractive to UK bidders as well) and is now a quite significant BPO player (which makes it attractive to the Indians too!) . So the nationality of the mystery buyer could be almost anywhere!

CEO Alistair Cox (who I rated) has just left to take up the CEO role at Hays. So this was a 'good' time to explore other strategic options.

I'm not party to any insider information on this one but my money would be on a bidder not listed in the Times "speculation".

Three weeks ago, a "banker who knows" told me that the ability of the PE sector to raise "Cov-Lite" funding had stopped abruptly. I was told that the Alliance-Boots deal was some £7b light and having great problems. Since then, the extent of their fund raising difficulties has been made public.

PE-backed "Public to Private" deals have been fueling the rises in the Stock Markets of late - including the tech. sector. For some reason, today seemed to be the day that the markets woke up to the fact that without "Cov-lite" PE deals the market may be ever so slightly overvalued. Given that I am hardly an "insider" I wonder why they took so long? The FTSE100 fell 203 points (c3.15%) to 6251. Wall Street seems to be going the same way as I write.

Is this a "one day blip" - of the kind that gets everyone worried and then it all gets forgotten as the market recovers and, indeed, continues its one way climb?

Or is this the start of the long forecast "correction"?

I'll stick my neck out and suggest the latter. Don't think we will see a crash though, which I think is defined as a 10% decline. But I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't "test" 6000 again soon.

The "sacking" of Didier Herrmann from the board of LogicaCMG has developed a few twists and turns. It now transpires that he was not fired from LogicaCMG – just demoted from the board. So who does he report to? Can't say. Who do his (ex-)reports report to? Can't say. What is his precise role now? Can't say. Why didn't LogicaCMG sack him outright? Can't say (but it is understood that shareholders were not consulted prior to the decision). I also understand that LogicaCMG says that the article in yesterday's FT Click here was wrong to suggest that Didier is still running France, Germany and Switzerland.

This is looking like a bigger mess by the day. Herrmann has a strong following in Unilog. So where do their allegiances now lie? Is the board's thinking that they'll just wait till a new CEO is appointed – someone who Herrmann is happy to report to – and that makes everything work again? What situation does that leave COO and interim-CEO-elect Jim McKenna in, the man that Didier refuses to report to? The FT article seems to be right in saying that the board was bitterly divided over what to do with Didier and came up with this very unsatisfactory compromise.

What ever one might think of Martin Read, this kind of situation would never have developed on his watch. Only problem is that his watch still hasn't finished quite yet....

I reproduce below my very last post on Ovum Holway's Hotnews on 21st Dec 06 - a sad day as after 21 years I left the firm I had created after 21 years upon the completion of the Datamonitor acquisition. Freed from the restraints of our self imposed Independence Charter, I immediately bought Apple shares for the first time at $85. In last night's after-hours trading Apple had risen to $137 - a rise of 60% for Holway and the best performing share in Holway's Portfolio by far!

Last night Apple released Q3 results with profits up 73% at $818m and revenues up 24% at $5.41b. The iPhone contributed a minuscule $5m to these figures as only 30 hours of sales were included in the figures. Even so they shipped 270,000 iPhones in that short period and say they are on target to ship 1m by end Sept 07. Tim Cook (Apple's COO) confirmed reports that Apple targets 10m iPhone sales in 2008 with European launches "by the end of 2007".

But it was the core Mac sales which really zoomed with 1.76m units shipped - an all time record! That's up 35% on Q3 2006. Even the iPod put on a 21% increase in units shipped to 9.8m. Pundits are predicting a major iPod line up relaunch in time for Christmas sales.

Despite reading several 'critical' reviews of these results, I think they are 'stellar'. The problem with 'stellar' results - particularly when every quarter for year-upon-year is 'stellar' - is that pundits believe 'the only way is down'. I guess Apple is bound to have a fall sometime. I just happen to believe that won't be for some time. Apple is on a serious roll right now and I see only upside in each of the three main legs of the business - Mac, iPod and iPhone.

As you can see in my archive piece below, I have stuck with Apple as my 'Top Tip' for four consecutive years now. I am NOT an Apple seller and very much hope that, come Dec 07, I can add a fifth year Top Tip to this record.

My annual ICT Leaders dinner for the Princes Trust Technology Leadership Group this year (atop the BT Tower on 4th Sept) is entitled Power to the People and is all about how users (corporate users and consumers) are now in the tech. driving seat. It will major on Web 2.0 and social networking in particular. I've written many pieces about the genre but decided that i really ought to experience it myself before I could talk about it properly. So I joined FaceBook about 3 weeks ago. I have been more amazed than I expected!

I have 1200 contacts on Outlook but only 25 of them matched with existing FaceBook members - and most of those were my daughters or other younger relatives/friends. I guess that only about 10 were business acquantances and they were all less than 40 years old. But since then I've made connections with another 20 business type friends as they have started to join FaceBook too. The ages are creeping up - my 'oldest' FaceBook friend is now 68.

I have certainly been amazed by the variety of Networks available. OK, I know many are downright juvenile, but there are quite a few that are very useful. For example, I joined the Online News Association UK. The Technology Journalists network has 100+ members like Chris Nuttall from the FT and Jack Schofield from the Guardian (Yep, I think Jack is even older than me!) The Web 2.0 (Entrepreneurs) network has 10,892 members!

I've already written about E&Y's US network which has over 8,500 members and is used for recruitment. Today I came across BT's FaceBook network which has an amazing 7,398 members. It's a 'closed' group - only accessable by BT employees.

Any other examples of 'corporate' FaceBook networks I can use? I'd especially be interested in examples of how they are used and what success they are having. Please either add as a comment or email me on rholway@holway.com

Back in January, when the Isoft difficulties were at their height, I reckoned that General Atlantic might come in with a bid. In the end IBA seemed to be the winner until last week German CompuGroup came in with a 66p all cash offer. This trumped the IBA offer of 52.7p which was in shares. The deal involves CSC taking over full responsibility for the NHS IT contract - indeed CSC is buying the IPR to the software used.

This seems an extremely sensible deal and, indeed, was much better that iSoft's shareholders could possibly have expected.

I was also pleased to see yesterday that Misys has sold two bits of its US Healthcare operations for a total of c$415m. Again this seems an excellent deal and Mike Lawrie is certainly showing his worth. I have long considered Misys' acquisition of Medic in 1997 for $921m to have been the worst (or is that best?) example of my long standing warning of "Acquisition Indigestion". Much of Misys' woes can be tracked back to 1997 and Medic contributed to many of them. So (as a Misys shareholder) I am delighted to see Lawrie undoing some of the bad decisions perpetrated by Lomax.

Early on the morning of 19th Sept 05, Martin Read - CEO of LogicaCMG - phoned. His first words were "I'm eating a bacon buttie with Didier Herrman (CEO of Unilog) and introducing him to the delights of English cuisine". Read was cock-a-hoop.
Read declared he was stepping down as CEO in May and now Didier has followed. Clearly delayed action from the bacon butties! But probably good that the decks are being cleared so that the new CEO has a clear run.
You can read my review of the Read Years at LogicaCMG on 27th May 07 Click here.

Just to point you to the Stock Exchange announcement today re: the issue of Subscription Shares at RCM Technology Trust plc. Assuming shareholders agree at the EGM in Aug, shareholders get one free subscription share for every five held. The Subscription price will be set at a 10% premium to the Nett Asset Value on 14th Aug. Conversion once a year from 2008 to 2012.
The fund has made good progress since the new managers were appointed on 1st May 07.
Note - I was appointed as an Non Exec Director of RCM Technology Trust plc. in early 2007.

I bought Blinkx - the video seach spoinout from Autonomy - on its IPO in May. Therefore I have a major interest in the following from the FT today. Hope it comes to pass!

"Blinkx gained 9.5 per cent to 46p after Citigroup initiated coverage with a speculative "buy" rating and a bullish 80p price target.
The online video search company, which demerged from Autonomy and listed on Aim in May, is not predicted to break even until 2010. Third-party agreements represent around 65 per cent of revenues and include a licensing deal with MTV. The Citigroup report noted that takeover speculation involving big internet players trying to get hold of the technology was "never likely to be far away

Followers of Microgen's 180p per share offer of Trace should note that, earlier this week, Tulip (the MBO vehicle) announced further irrevocables for their 156p offer. Tulip says they now hold irrevocables for a total of 7.14m shares or 50.08% of the share capital. A significant majority of these do NOT fall away if there is a higher bid and are locked in for 12 months. They can only fall away if Tulip withdraws its bid, which at the moment they seem resolute in not doing. In addition, Tulip is offering to give 95% of shares in its main subsidiaries to the current staff. Something, I have to admit, I have never encountered before.

But there are many aspects of this whole affair I haven't encountered before either. Let's face it, hostile bids for people-based businesses are pretty uncommon too. Bids where the execs and non execs are clearly at odds are uncommon too. Bids where shareholders have voted to accept a considerably lower price than that on the table are rare too! Clearly many of the shareholders (mostly directors and staff of course) prefer independence to becoming part of Microgen; almost whatever the price. The problem is that this is going to leave a nasty "taste" should the Microgen bid eventually be successful. That's why most companies wouldn't even attempt a hostile bid for a people-based company. I fully realise that Microgen might well wish the top management layer to depart. But this situation looks to me as if the whole company could be left alienated and demotivated. (Believe me, I have some recent experience of this as readers will know!)

Is this all posturing? Certainly several people in the City now expect the deadlock to be broken by a higher bid. That needs to be at 200p. But will that come from Microgen or Tulip?

Microgen's own share price has been all over the place in the last week. Falling by 15% to 43p - then breaching 50p on the pre close interim announcement before falling back again. The talk again was of meeting profit expectations and exceeding margin guidance. Although 3 out of the four divisions reported organic growth, I suspect that overall Microgen missed its revenue forecasts.

Although there is clearly logic in the Microgen/Trace coupling, neither company has displayed much ability on the organic growth front. I'm sure that the coupling can achieve great cost savings and will boost earnings as a result. Whether it will result in overall organic revenue growth - I'll need convincing.

More and more I am convinced that only companies showing good organic growth (be it "blended" or "pure") will get rewarded by shareholders.

Newswires and media full in last few hours of reports that Pipex is about to announce the sale of its 1m UK broadband customers to Italian Tiscali for c£210m. Yet another example of the rampant consolidation in the highly competitive UK Broadband sector.

What Tiscali has to understand though is that it is just as important to keep customers as to gain new ones. (they pay more and they cost nothing to gain) Tiscali service levels and associated customer service levels are absolutely awful. I know - I am a Tiscali customer who suffered two weeks without being able to send any emails last month. For Tiscali to have allowed themselves to be hit by spammers was bad enough but the way they treated their customers hit by the problem was appalling. It took them five days to admit that they had a problem - blaming their customers until then!
Surely Pipex can only improve that?

A report on the FT's MergerMarket service today Click here suggests that Sage could be in the running to buy French software house Cegid. However, the report also suggests that PE houses were also likely bidders. Indeed H&F, which has recently bought the 'consolidated' Iris and CSG (see below) is mentioned in the article.

Currently Cegid shares trades at E45 valuing the group at E395m. The FT report suggests at an offer price of "E55 or higher" is required - putting the value nearer E500m. That is well within Sage's range (indeed well within the range to avoid Holway's dreaded 'acquisition Indigestion'!) and Sage has made France a target area of expansion. Indeed Cegid seems an excellent fit with Sage. Cegid concentrates on business software for SMEs in particular verticals like chartered accountants and auditors, fashion, industry, retailers, hotel and restaurant management, distributors, public works and civil engineering, and hygiene. It has standard software in payroll, HR, sales admin - like Sage. Sage already has some experience of acquisitions in France having bought Adonix and Cogestib in 2005 - although these were pretty small. Cegid would add around E250m revenue.

Looks like Cegid would prefer a "trade buyer". To me Sage seems the most natural of homes.

Excellent article on Facebook from the ever improving MarketClusters. Their first real "backgrounder". I commend you to read it. Click here. 

I do recommend you to read the article in today's FT entitled "Talent Hunt in the Virtual World". To read Click Here. It includes how the UK's PA Consulting has setup virtual office in Second Life to help its recruitment. It goes on to report that E&Y has created a Facebook group for anyone interested in a job. More than 8000 people have signed up for the group.

In the last few months, I have spoken to lots of people about "Social networking". There really does seem to be a huge divide between those who still think it is something for teenagers (which, of course it is) and those who have realised that this is a vital marketing and communication tool for all ages. OK, right now, as the figures I have reported before show, it's the sub 40 year olds that have really embraced it. Given that many companies are controlled by those that are over 40, but rely on both the purchasing power and the jobs of sub 40 year olds, iit seems very dangerous for them to write off the medium so flippantly. 

If you are involved in any graduate recruitment, your presence and resulting reputation on the social networking sites is going to have a huge effect on your success. Graduates, or any "younger" recruits, would first turn to such sites to see what current employees thought about working there. Indeed, they will then interact with them and get some pretty forthright answers. The same will apply to people contemplating large purchases (like cars) or holiday destinations. Indeed, this viral networking could make careers (just see what Myspace did for Lilly Allen!) or break them.

Sorry to repeat the "Ignore this at your peril" warning. But I just did.

Nick Wilson (ex of Unisys and before that IBM Global Services) has been appointed to head up CSC UK. He takes over from Keith Wilman who left several months back to head up Atos Origin UK. Duncan Tait is promoted to head Unisys UK in Nick's place. Nick had taken over from Alwyn Welch who left to head Parity. (Are you keeping up?)

As my friend Phil Codling in today's Ovum Holway Hotnews service pointed out, that just leaves two other important vacancies in the UK ITS firmament to be filled - the CEO roles at LogicaCMG and Xansa. If you remember (see Archive 31st May 07) we were running a "book" on the LogicaCMG role with Bill Thomas from EDS heading it when we last looked.

According to the FT today O2 is "poised to clinch a deal as Apple's exclusive network partner for the iPhone in the UK". The report also gives the impression that (as in the US) there will not be a 3G version on launch.

Most observers had expected a deal with Vodaphone which included 3G. Indeed, the internet experience is pretty dire on 2G. Although we remain a fan of the iPhone, the limitations in the business arena seem to be mounting. It won't really work with many corporate email systems incl MS Exchange. WiFi access is still patchy. Indeed I do most of my mobile working on trains - where it is currently non existent.

What I really want is a network independent iPhone. I think the mobile network I chose to use should be on the same level as my choice of Broadband ISP. And that is certainly irrelevant in my choice of PC or any other device I may connect to it.
Anyway, I've never bought a V1 version of an Apple product. The best versions come out c9 months after launch. Looks like Mrs Holway's dilemma of what to buy Mr Holway for Christmas 2007 might not have been solved afterall!

We understand that, at the 11th hour and contrary to the statements made at the time of the H&F purchase of both Iris and CSG from HG Capital, Vin Murria will now not have any role in the "New Iris". Vin was to have been "Chief M&A Officer" Only a few weeks back (13th June) Vin had said "The combination of IRIS's market leading solutions and highly successful operational capabilities are hugely complimentary to CS Group's M&A driven growth and niche market focus. This is an exciting opportunity to dynamically grow a successful customer centric business that can only be positive for all clients and employees alike. We too are delighted to have the backing of Hellman & Friedman."

Mind you the combination of Vin Murria and Martin Leuw seemed pretty unlikely to work when we first heard of it. But we expected it to, at least, get past Day One.

What next?
Well, after a break until September, Vin will return to setup some kind of new vehicle. "I want to do my own thing" Vin says. That's if PE, shell companies and others don't get to her first.

As many readers know, I published the first “Holway Report” back in 1988. Also in 1988, a tiny UK S/ITS company called Total Systems launched into the USM (the forerunner of AIM). So I have been reading Terry Bourne’s Chairman’s statements every year since. Bourne is “special”…there are few quoted UK S/ITS companies who now have the same Ch. and CEO as in 1988. Probably now proving what many have long suspected about my mental health, I’ve rather enjoyed his statements.

It all started when I used Bourne in my crusade against the use of the word “confidence” in trading statements – Bourne had used the term “looking forward to the future with confidence” every year…regardless of what had or was about to befall his company.
In the 1994 Chairman’s statement, his excuse for poor performance was to say “It is particularly galling that Total has the products, people and expertise yet customers seem unable to see the benefits.” It didn’t get any better.
In 1995 he wrote “Amongst some potential clients there is still a reluctance to introduce the level of change necessary to gain real and substantial cost savings through the installation of our application packages”.
Unfortunately, Bourne didn’t share my strange enjoyment at his utterings; accusing me of “unnecessary expressions of opinion”. (Ed - Isn't that what analysts are paid to do?) His letter of 7th July 1993 suggested that I wait and “let history make the point”.

“Let history make the point!”
Total’s Corporate Brochure in 1995 boasted “Total’s history has been one of steady growth”.
Well, in 1988 when they IPOed Total had revenues of £2.9m and PBT of £835K.

Yesterday, some 19 years later, Total Systems announced their results for the year to 31st March 07. Revenues had slumped yet again – this time by 4% to £3.36m. PBT had been wiped out – replaced by a loss of £530K. Patient investors had seen their share price slump from 85p in 1988 to 34p now (It fell another 11% yesterday) . So now you know what “Steady growth” means. I’m sure even Bourne would agree we have waited long enough for “history to make the point”.

Excuses, excuses
Last year the excuse was “Reduced spending..is partly due to the reliability and flexibility of our products”. So when customers are eventually convinced of the benefit of a Total product, go through the pain of change, they then find the products so reliable that they stop spending anymore with Total. It’s so sad.

So, it was with great anticipation that I turned to what excuses Bourne would use this year. “The level of work from Capita has not been as extensive as anticipated and our existing customers, although supportive, have not made decisions on starting significant projects. Invu and Contemi continue to generate interest with our clients and sales prospects but there have been no sizeable orders at the time of writing”. Oh dear, it's those damned customers and partners again.Reminds me of my time putting in Hotel systems back in the 1970s. A manager told me how well his hotel would run if it wasn't for the guests and staff.

The problem with Total is they shouldn’t have listed in the first place and certainly shouldn’t be listed now.

Anyway, you will be pleased to learn that Bourne ended his statement yesterday saying that “the Board is confident that the Company’s strategy will bear fruit.”

Nothing changes.

Last night at the Prince's Trust Summer Reception (see below) the BBC's Ashley Highfield asked for a show of hands on who had FaceBook accounts. Over 50% admitted this. Considering the audience was mostly over 40, mostly high powered tech people, that was interesting in its own right!" Indeed, as iI have written on this Blog before, I was surprised to find so many of my business friends already on faceBook when I signed up.

Interestingly though, Parks Associates has found that many are "Internet Tarts". Over 50% of users are on more than one social networking service. One in six use three or more. FaceBook is really "winning" right now against MySpace which actually lost traffic last month. FaceBook is growing at 19 times the rate of MySpace and, if it maintained that growth rate, would overtake MySpace in Sept. (Source - Nielson Netratings)

Which, of course, rather beggars the question of why MySpace is supposedly worth $5billion when its users can be so fickle? The Times today, indeed, questioned whether "brand value" actually meant much in the new Web 2.0 world. If a "Brand" can be built in a few months, clearly "Brands" can be overtaken and possibly die in similar timeframes.

I'm pretty convinced that that is exactly what will happen to most of the current Social networking "Brands". It really is very easy (and, as we know, it's free) to swap sites or use multiple providers. Goodness gracious, I do that with internet savings accounts already and that's much more difficult and time consuming. I could put my profile up on Bebo (I haven't actually felt the need to do that yet) in a few clicks of a mouse.

Personally I'd rather like a "BusinessFace.com". Call me old fashioned (or even just old) but I do get a bit fed up with trawling through so many US college kids on FaceBook. Why not have a dedicated social networking site for business people? Some would say that LinkedIn was just that - but it isn't. Comparing LinkedIn with FaceBook is like comparing MS DOS with Mac OS.

Another idea you heard first from Holway that will no doubt be developed by someone else and make them billions.

"Sell in May and Go Away? Well, so far you would have done well to heed that advice. All the indices we follow fell in June. Indeed the FTSE SCS index was down 4.23%. It's interesting that the two powerhouses this year - Support Services and Media also fell.

There are a growing number who are getting increasingly concerned about the economy as a whole. Higher interest rates are really starting to have an effect as the warning from Tesco in June indicated. Consumer spending effects many parts of the tech sector directly. "Maybe the iPhone will have to wait if I can't pay the mortgage?" But it also affects the whole corporate IT sector too. Outsourcing tends to be "non-cyclical" but other sectors - hardware and software in particular - are prone to economic uncertainty.

But on the other hand, M&A boosts share prices in unnatural ways. Maybe it was just a shortage of tech M&A in June that caused the "blip"?

A big thank you to everyone who attended the Princes Trust Technology Leadership Group summer reception atop Barclay in Canary Wharf.

Ashley Highfield from the BBC gave a great presentation on his vision for video. The glimpse of how the BBC archive might become available and searchable on the web was inspiring. Ashley made the point that it wasn't just the 'popular' programmes but the vast wealth of specialist stuff - eg History programmes available for student research - that wuld be available. Also the ability for advertisers (they are using a variety of sources like Youtube for this) to target niche groups who wanted to view specific archive programmes (his example, was "How to look after Koy Carp..") He also outlined how the BBC had organised a "Hacksville" Day; inviting developers to come up with ideas on how to advance the service. One was a Facebook app which allowed Facebook members to list and review the BBC programmes they had watched with direct links to the video.

Contrary to early statements, Ashley told me that I shuold easily be able to use iPlayer on a mobile device. I'll have to test that out when it becomes available. But I am sceptical of the claim even with 3G!

Mike Lynch from Autonomy was equally interesting. This was a few hours before today's announcement that Autonomy that Q2 results were "significantly ahead of expectations". Autonomy shares up 9% today as a result. That means in rough terms they have doubled in the last year and up 4x in the last two years. Autonomy have also announced the acquisition of Zantaz Inc - a content archiving company - for $375m. this adds c$100m rev. They are undertaking a $75m placomg to raise funds for the purchasek.

The iPhone hype continued to gather pace this weekend after the "Jesus Phone" was finally made available to the Choosen Few at 6.00pm US time in Friday.

Actually the concensus view of the (far too many) news reports and blogs I have read, is that the iPhone has met (or surpassed) its OTT promise. A major achievement in itself.

The quote that appealed to me most was "The phones out there are just garbage. I've gone through several phones, even the expensive ones. This is different," said Albert Livingstone in Chicago. "It's the newest toy. I'm 62 -- I don't have much time left to buy toys."

People who know me best will understand why!

History has shown that, when it comes to chauvinism, the French would win by a country mile. Nowhere is this more evident than when those jolly foreigners want to take over their companies. It gets even more intense when that company is in technology. What tends to happen, when one of their own is threatened with a 'hostile' bid, is that a "French" deal is hatched behind the scenes.

Latest example of this was occasioned when David Courtley's Fujitsu Services had the audacity to bid for GFI Informatique on 25th May at Euro8.50 a share; valuing GFI at cEuro 420m.

Yesterday GFI's CEO, Jacque Tordjman, told shareholders that Fujitsu's offer was "unsolicited and hostile", that Fujitsu and GFI did not co-operate on any projects right now making synergy difficult and that the offer seriously undervalued GFI.

Tordjman told shareholdes that he was now in merger talks with...you guessed it, French Groupe Bull. Groupe Bull has had a more troubled life - and more owners - than is healthy, as the Frech Govt. went to extreme length to retain this "national treasure".

Goodness knows what would happen if the Indians are really serious on taking over Capgemini!