It`s not so much that the results were bad. That was expected. Operating numbers before goodwill amortisation and exceptional items plummeted from $38 million in the first half of last year to a loss of $7 million in the six months under review. The decline from the immediately preceding period was a little less alarming, at $10 million.

The bulk of the damage was done in the US, where things just keep going wrong.

Having turned around the applications business (the infamous Proxicom acquisition), suspicions Brainstorm alluded to in its March 2003 cover story over the performance of Didata`s US network integration businesses proved to be well founded. A steep decline in market demand, especially in New York`s financial services sector, hammered the business, resulting in a widening loss.