George O'Connor and Ian Robertson catch up on recent Tech News, discussing stock and sector rotation in tech and the semiconductors industry.

Having reviewed Allianz Tech Trust and Polar Capital Tech Trust recently, George looks at divergent performance in the sector and the big focus and interest in semiconductors. And with so much going on but so little clarity in the sector, Ian questions whether now is the time to start looking beyond the Mag 7 for AI plays (to a Mag1000?) and finds this might require something of a whack-a-mole approach. He also discusses ASML (see recent Talking Tech Insight) and considers how, when and whether the wider semiconductor industry will follow Nvidia’s path.

Companies mentioned:
CML Microsystems, HSW Hostel World, RPI Raspberry Pi, Nvidia, Travel Tech, AirBNB, Equinox, Rackspace, Data Analytics, ThoughtWorks, Palantir

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If you enjoyed listening to the Talking Tech podcast you might like to take a look at the accompanying Talking Tech insights.

Brought to you by Progressive.

George O'Connor and Ian Robertson catch up on recent tech news.

They consider whether in the words of Robert Smith (of Vista Equity Partners) ‘‘Software tastes like chicken’ and what the success of Mark Leonard’s $80bn market cap Constellation Software as a serial acquiror of vertical market software businesses, has in the way of lessons for UK listed company investors and advisors.

They also chat about recent industry newsflow, discussing vertical market software companies, GenAI and data centres, and the market's negative reaction to Alphabet’s recent results. Over the next few weeks they look forward to the quarterly results of other big tech like Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon, and wonder what they will say and commit to on AI in promises and dollars.

If you enjoyed listening to the Talking Tech podcast you might like to take a look at the accompanying Talking Tech insights.

Brought to you by Progressive.

George O'Connor and Ian Robertson catch up on recent tech news and discuss the implications of the new Labour government upon the small and mid-cap listed tech space.

George has been canvassing opinions amongst the great and the good of UK tech and found a generally positive, if somewhat non-committal, view. The Labour party have been making many of the right noises, and appear aware of the problems, but we await some clarity on what they are going to do about them.

It is clear that there are going to be opportunities for UK listed tech companies, although there is the note of caution that for some it is likely to be a case of better to travel well than to arrive.

If you enjoyed listening to the Talking Tech podcast you might like to take a look at the accompanying Talking Tech insights.

Brought to you by Progressive.

George O'Connor and Ian Robertson catch up on recent tech news. They discuss Ian’s blog on the question of what 'cloud native' is and whether we really need the big rewrite of existing code. George reviews the positive news extending from the small end with Made Tech and tinyBuild, through to the giant Accenture. He also talks about his evening at the recent Enterprise awards, highlighting UK Fintech Quantexa as the star of the show.

Ian waxes lyrical on Constellation Software from Canada, the vertical markets software giant that no-one has heard of. At which point AI resurfaces and they consider whether it might be AI rewriting the code to make everything cloud native after all.

If you enjoyed listening to the Talking Tech podcast you might like to take a look at the accompanying Talking Tech insights.

Brought to you by Progressive.

As some 45,000 people attended London's Tech Week last week, George O'Connor and Ian Robertson got together to talk about the latest sector news.

With the theme of rates higher for longer equating to lower for longer, George touched on how this macro centric year of elections was effecting the growth prospects of Small Caps. Ian discussed the geo-spatial theme linking two of our stocks, Idox and Oxford Metrics, who reported recently. Both companies are on the acquisition trail and Ian and George pondered whether the more realistic prices seen lately would bring a flow of companies back from private equity and venture capital markets into the public market.

The pair looked at the similarities and differences between the customers and backers of Cisco and NVIDIA and the tendency for tech investors to buy into a trend rather than the business case when there are so many tech stocks and ecosystems to consider. Lastly they talked about the 10x over-subscribed Raspberry Pi IPO and questioned the price discovery process following the 43% hike in share price.

Companies mentioned include:
Idox, Oxford Metrics, Tracsis, RWS, NVIDIA, Cisco, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Wintel, NetScientific and Raspberry Pi.

If you enjoyed listening to the Talking Tech podcast you might like to take a look at the accompanying Talking Tech insights.

Brought to you by Progressive.

George O'Connor and Ian Robertson discuss the impact of digitalisation on analog businesses and how sometimes it is not the big disruptive story that makes the difference.

Digitalisation has made a huge impact on the world of Domino’s Pizza and yet Cazoo has shown that being a ‘disruptor’ is not enough – you have to know what you are trying to disrupt. They then consider Shein and whether, once the issues are considered, any real analysis of the business is ever going to happen.

If you enjoyed listening to the Talking Tech podcast you might like to take a look at the accompanying Talking Tech insights.

Brought to you by Progressive.

In this episode George O’Connor and Ian Robertson catch up on recent and mostly positive Tech News, with George holding his positivity pledge card firmly aloft.

They also discuss the Raspberry Pi IPO – another reason to be cheerful. A London float, a good company, a growth company and litmus test for the UK equity market.

Brought to you by Progressive.

If you enjoyed listening to the Talking Tech podcast you might like to take a look at the accompanying Talking Tech insights.

George O’Connor and Ian Robertson discuss UK small and mid-cap tech, examining current issues and searching for facts, clarity and understanding.

In this first episode they discuss the opportunities in motion capture, virtual reality and machine learning smart vision at Oxford Metrics, and the potential for profitable semiconductor player, CML Microsystems, to profit from next generation wireless technologies – real 5G, industrial IoT and satellites.

George ponders Indian outsourcers and the duo look at how important it is for investors to understand how software companies sell – looking at the direct sales approaches by Darktrace and Idox, and at product led growth for dearly departed Sopheon. Stuff that’s just not popular to write about but in some sectors just doesn’t get considered. Perhaps this is a clue to how so many of us got spooked.

They also consider the outlook for UK technology and small-cap. With guarded optimism.

'Our belief remains that with information, context and explanation, investors can learn to love not fear UK small cap tech. Although, as George says, it’s not a straight line...'

Brought to you by Progressive.

If you enjoyed listening to the Talking Tech podcast you might like to take a look at the accompanying Talking Tech insights.

NB CML Microsystems, Oxford Metrics and Idox are clients of Progressive. Sopheon was a client prior to de-listing.