Tadpole floats even higher following investor interest

At the close of trading last night, Tadpole's shares had settled at 42.5 pence, after reaching a high of 62 pence. This represents a rise in price of almost 400 per cent over a week.

Influential City investors have rallied behind the Cambridge-based company following the announcement last week that it was turning its back on Intel in favour of Sun technology.

A range of Sparc-based notebooks is planned for this summer to cash in on the Java solutions market.

But investors who have tracked the company's performance over a rocky three years will be unlikely to follow the more intrepid speculators just yet. Up until earlier this month the company's share price was down to seven pence thanks largely to its ill-fated attempt to compete in the high-end Intel-based notebook market.