Thousands of calories were burnt as the riders put themselves and their bikes through their paces. Despite treacherous conditions following prolonged periods of rain, the team completed 14 laps of the challenging 13km off-road course.

The team had a great weekend at the event, but were also very happy to get home afterwards and rest their weary bodies!

To ensure Purple are able to deliver fixed price packages of work, we have invested heavily in developing our own processes and procedures; frameworks for developing systems, software and prototype software now exist, and we would like to thank all the staff that worked hard to this end. We have taken on several new projects with both new and existing customers, whilst retaining a footprint in the longer running projects. In January, Purple were selected by the Met Office under a framework for software development services, another measure of our growing ability to take on larger and more complex deliverables.

Our staff have, once again, proven to be the major factor in us making progress. We consistently receive high praise from customers about our contribution to their projects, and this is because of the intelligence, endeavour and commitment of Purple's engineers. Furthermore, all staff have made their time available to support the wider business objectives, including sales and marketing support, recruitment, interviewing and public relations; we are delighted that so many wish to stretch themselves and be involved in wider business activities.

Our core market of government and defence systems, has seen many changes over the course of the year, and is likely to see many more of over the next two years. The new coalition government has announced very significant reductions in public spending; alongside a defence review due later in 2010, this is likely to put pressure on both project volumes and costs. Despite a challenging project environment, we remain optimistic about the future because of the quality of our staff, the recent investments we have made and the flexibility and responsiveness that our customers have come to depend on.

The abbreviated annual accounts of Purple Secure Systems can be viewed here.

The Ministry of Defence is one of the most advanced organisations in the world in its adoption of architectural design standards. It is the author of an architectural framework (MODAF) that has been adopted by many organisations from NATO to industry and many other government agencies. MODAF tells us how to communicate a design, not how to produce that design. The MOD is now developing standards concerning the design process. This Cranfield led activity will help inform this project.

David Harris, Managing Director, Purple Secure Systems said: "This project is a very important activity for MOD and its industrial partners; it will enable all parties to learn about how good ideas are transformed successfully into appropriate and well designed functional technology for the end user. There are too many technology projects that struggle to achieve their original vision and Cranfield’s work shall go about addressing this problem. Purple’s involvement is a measure of our maturity since our inception 4 years ago".

Dr Graham Fletcher, Head of Information Systems Architectures, Cranfield University said: "Within the University and the wider defence sector we are always looking to push boundaries, both in engineering and in the people we work with. We are very excited to be starting this project and to be working with such a young and dynamic industrial partner".

DAVID HALLIWELL

A Chartered Engineer, David worked in technical and management roles at CAP Group for 10 years following completion of a Mathematics degree from Oxford University. He subsequently founded Quintec Associates, a systems engineering and management services company which grew from 5 original founders to over 150 employees by providing top quality systems engineering advice to a range of organisations involved in the procurement, development and acceptance of complex real time engineering systems. Since leaving, he has mentored start-up companies and remains active in defence consulting.

Commenting on today's appointment, David Harris, Managing Director said:
"Since our inception in 2006, Purple has grown to become an established and strategic supplier to a number of customers in government and defence systems and software engineering. David’s appointment will help consolidate this progress, and ensure we are well placed to sustain further growth and development."

David Halliwell said:
"I am pleased to be joining Purple at a time where they are looking to leverage their proven track-record and build a more strategic capability for their customers. I look forward to working with all the staff and associates at Purple Secure Systems."

The growth strategy of extending our current consultancy business combined with offering fixed price and packages of work is progressing well. Our services have helped several government and defence systems integrators deliver 17 different military and public service applications over the course of our financial year. We have continued to invest in developing our own ISO9001 certified QMS for systems and software engineering development, together with identifying appropriate premises for handling classified data; this forms a key part of Purple’s 5 year vision and means that customers shall be able to rely on us to deliver projects/tasks or build components under delivery based contracts.

Recruiting and retaining the highest quality permanent and associate engineers has remained the fundamental reason for our success thus far. We consistently receive high praise about the ability and attitude of our staff. Many have joined INCOSE (The International Council on Systems Engineering) and we actively encourage all staff to utilise their full external training allowance. We remain committed to an employee centric ethos and continue to recruit on this basis.

Our end of year conference took place in Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, in May of this year. Details of the weekend can be found here.

Despite our good progress thus far, we are likely to be affected by the current UK recession and tightening public expenditure. MOD funding, in particular, is becoming increasingly challenging and several customers are seeing reduced workload and also place greater emphasis on cost control. Some, however, see the opportunity to outsource packages of work to us, and other customers remain positive about ongoing and future project activity.

Purple’s strategic progress together with strong revenue, an excellent team, ongoing tight cost control and good cash reserves positions us well for continuing success in 2009/2010. The abbreviated annual report of Purple Secure Systems can be viewed here.

The Quarterly meeting was held on the Saturday morning, where the Purple Directors gave an informative presentation to the team. A brainstorming session followed and several product ideas came into fruition! Meanwhile the partners were exploring the local costal paths and Tintagel village.

After a morning of hard graft, the group headed to The Cobweb in Boscastle for a pub lunch and some much needed energy for the activity of the afternoon...

...surfing in Polzeath! The ‘hard core’ of the group suited up in neoprene, grabbed some foam boards and dived into the cold and choppy Cornish waters. There was a varied degree of wave-riding success as the keen eight fought an onslaught of waves and a multitude of weather conditions!

On Saturday evening, a three course meal was enjoyed by all in the hotel restaurant. Afterwards, a night cap at the infamous round table was in order, which drew a close to a thoroughly enjoyable weekend retreat.