FirstWave extends agreement with Microsoft

ASX-listed network management and cybersecurity software group FirstWave Cloud Technology has secured an extension and annual recurring revenue (ARR) uplift to its contract with Microsoft.

The new 12-month agreement has a total value of approximately AU$770k, representing an 18% uplift from the previous agreement and effectively delivering what the company says is a gross margin of ~100%.

The collaboration with Microsoft is across various products within FirstWave’s NMIS v9 suite of software.

FirstWave's NMIS (Network Management Information System) is a network management platform, originally open-sourced in 1999, that provides critical technology to manageIT infrastructure, including networks, firewalls, servers, and other network attached devices.

The increase in value of the current agreement is primarily due to expansion in the number of licensed nodes from 12,000 to 14,000.

In a statement released to the ASX, FirstWave said it is confident that the expanded agreement has further capacity for growth in terms of the number of licensed nodes; the potential licensing of the company's newly released opHA Message Bus 5.0 technology; and the impending AI powered IT compliance releases by the company which address the challenges of managing large-scale, distributed, mission-critical networks and multi-customer networks.

FirstWave CEO Danny Maher said the new agreement with Microsoft was a strong endorsement of the company'sproduct roadmap and its strategic goal of growing its network management footprint in North and Latin America.

"We have built powerful and cost-effective network management software that scales and continues to be valued by large blue-chip corporate and telecommunications clients" he said.

"An expanded commercial arrangement with Microsoft is a strong validation of the strength of our technology and our technology roadmap, and we look forward to continuing to build further on the relationship."

Last month, the company extended its agreement with Telstra for the provision of Information Security Manual (ISM)-compliant CyberCision software and services to several Federal Government agencies.

FirstWave also recently struck a partnership with Amazon Web Services and Corent Technology that will see its IT compliance and network management software deployed on the AWS Marketplace within three weeks.