From the archives – and it only took them four years to achieve!
The Autonomy + HP deal – we add our comments
Added on the 19th Aug 2011 at 10:59 am
So we thought we’d say something about the HP acquisition of Autonomy for $10billion.
The first point is this is not a legal IT deal – the legal market bit represents a tiny part of the overall deal – this is all about HP reinventing itself by buying itself a killer software business.
Why did Mike Lynch of Autonomy chose to sell now? We reckon it is because he realised the game was up and that long term he was not going to win the Autonomy IDOL versus Microsoft FAST search engine war. And, given the parlous state of the global IT industry, he probably reckoned the HP deal could be the best offer on the table for a long time.
As for the iManage Worksite etc DMS part of the equation, given the ruthless way HP is spinning off businesses it no longer regards as core, we wouldn’t be surprised if iManage is also spun off in the near future. Given some of the grumblings we are hearing from US law firms about the attitude of Autonomy – and its pricing policy – a ‘let go’ iManage might actually represent a better deal for law firms.