I was woken up this morning by a text from Nik. Firstly, a big thank you to Nik for doing it by text, last time it was by hitting a gong (nobody knows where he got it from) four inches from my ear. The text was about the new plan, announced on the 11th of May by the government, to fit "smart metres" in every home in britain by 2020 at a total cost of £7 billion (original article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8042716.stm). 

On the surface this seems like good news, whilst Qonnectis main focus has been on their water metering product, they also provide smart metering systems for gas and electricity (http://www.qonnectis.com/Solutions/Energy-Utility/Default.aspx) and so could be a part of this. 

Furthermore the recent reshuffle of the management team seems to have left them open to a "re-think" and so may make them well placed to capitalise on this intiiative. The existing relationshiops, alberit limited, which they have established with local councils in pilot programs may well make them a likely parnter to work with again.

Their biggest problems at the moment are communication and advertising. There website is currently only updated when results or similar announcements occur which is a lost oppurtunity, they should be in negotiations with their design company as we speak to have the website subtly re-structured to focus on this new market oppurtunity as well as actively pitching to existing contacts who may be involved with the new venture.

They also need to tell people what they are doing, keeping the website up to date would be an important part of this but also improving their general relationship with investors, answering queries helpfully and promptly and generally re-assuring those who they may well have to come to for further funds that they have a clear plan for the coming year.

The reasons for buying Qonnectis largley still stand, as a "penny share" we were buying into the potential success of the product, they were always going to succeed or fail, there was no oppurtunity for steady growth here. Our initial analysis was based heavily on the fact that we felt that initiatives such as the governments new plan to install smart metering systems across the country were inevitable given the political focus on the environment.

We were out by well over year on our predictions for when such initiatives would begin and none of us predicted the deteriation of the world economy but if Qonnectis can hold it together and take advantage of this new oppurtunity they may go far.