The tone for October was set by industry bellwether SAP in the early days of the month. They reported customers holding back on IT spend in the second half of September. This was followed shortly after by supply chain software provider Kewill which reported a similar experience: customers' decision cycles lengthening.With both companies reporting robust pipelines, the jury is out on whether this is simply a short-term timing issue, or whether a sustained fall-off in demand is underway. As a general rule the companies themselves tend towards the former. Investors fear the latter, with the truth likely to lie somewhere in between. What we do know is that the presence of high levels of debt makes the cost of failure high.So scrutiny of balance sheets and cashflow remains a priority for us. That's not to say it's been all doom and gloom. There have been positive updates from the likes of Endace, who develop and sell network monitoring equipment, and SDL, provider of translation software. We also note with interest sizeable director buying in both Fidessa and Amino Technologies.
