Grey Matter, a specialist in the dark arts of software licensing, had a decent fiscal 2012 with both the top and bottom lines rising.

The Devon-based reseller saw turnover climb by more than a fifth to £26.8m in the year ended 30 June with operating profit rising 15.7 per cent to £793,000 and net profit up 17 per cent to £600,0000.

Andrew King, managing director at Grey Matter, told The Channel that his company had stuck to its knitting by providing licensing advice and related services to "businesses and other resellers".

The reseller supplies software from 2,000 publishers including Microsoft, Oracle, VMware, Adobe, Symantec and several ISVs and also sells software asset management services.

"We have continued to invest during the recession in growing the number of our supplier relationships, in staff training and recruitment, and in our IT infrastructure to reduce manual effort," said King.

He reckons all these small steps are paying dividends. "We remain cautiously confident for FY13 and beyond," he added. ®