Post AGM Thoughts

Back at Padders en route home with the inevitable delays on FGW. Some things never change.

Despite my desire to give everyone a right royal kicking today for failing to provide what we want when we want it in terms of PR, unit delivery, license creation, etc once you get in front of the Pied Piper of Kings Langley it's hard not to fall under his spell. Some things never change.

Even when you still feel from his answers that he is a little oversensitive to suggestions that things seemed to have been presented in a less than straight bat way you can still be swayed. Some things never change.

When you hear that there are great things coming over the hill in a couple of years you can't help but think you've heard something similar a few times before. Some things never change.

You enjoy the demo room, some parts of which are now like dear, dusty old friends, you meet the usual suspects, who by now you see more often than many of our oldest friends, you enjoy the hospitality. Some things never change.

But some things change. Some things make you feel there is a difference in the air. Sometimes you sense that this time, yes THIS time, the shiny thing you see over there just beyond your clear sight is actually the light at the end of the tunnel and not the jackdaw's bauble that's been intermittently catching your eye.

Is this one of those things ? Who knows, these things are so fraught with obstacles that it's hard to see the finishing line for them.

Not this year, that's for sure, be in no doubt that H1 is going to be an absolute disaster in terms of financial performance. But H2 will see a substantial improvement (over an admittedly woeful H1) and next year will see some level of improvement from already signed older licenses in many fields (yes! we will finally see some Ensigma units).

But if you're hoping that next year will be Shangri La then you may also be disappointed.

The huge number of licenses signed last year are almost worthless per deal (£38m for 100+ licenses) there is huge hope for results from more of these than normal.

Teams are in the East repairing relationships, things are positive in terms of tech news from the west, we have repelled some patent trolling mo-fo's apparently and we have enough cash to pay for the last building and any further work we need to do in terms of cash flow

We are, I believe, truly 2 years from majorly improved results. Some things never change.