iManage has prepared an FAQ from chief marketing officer Dan Carmel in response to the news on 8 September that Hewlett Packard Enterprise has spun out the remaining Autonomy business, which includes Autonomy IDOL, the search engine licensed by iManage and which underpins iManage Work. You can read it here in full:
On September 7, 2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced plans to spin-off and merge its non-core software assets with Micro Focus. This includes autonomy IDOL, which is used by iManage, so customers may be concerned about the future of IDOL and innovation in IDOL as a result of this transaction
What exactly happened?
HP Enterprise (HPE) has spun out its software businesses including application delivery management, big data, enterprise security, information management and governance, and IT operations management. It is retaining the software efforts that are central to its hybrid IT focus, including the CloudSystem brand, HPE OneView, Helion OpenStack, and its software-defined storage and networking products.
Microfocus has paid HP $2.5 B in cash and HP will assume a 50.1% share in the new company. So, HP is not exactly exiting the software business but has shifted control of these assets to an organization that is smaller, more focused, and more likely to bring success to these existing products.
What is the impact on HP products and technology that iManage customers still use?
Autonomy and IDOL are part of what has been transferred to Micro Focus.
Will iManage continue to use IDOL as its search engine? Will iManage continue to have access to IDOL technology? Will the new company continue to improve and support IDOL as product?
The short answer is yes. All our OEM agreements with HPE continue to be in force, so nothing really changes in terms of our access to IDOL technology. Autonomy is a significant portion of the assets that were sold, so we do not expect support for this important product will suffer. We expect that iManage customers may affect benefit, as we have seen that when smaller more focused organizations take over key products, innovation and customer satisfaction can improve. We are optimistic that the roadmap for IDOL will only benefit and accelerate as a result of this transition.
For further details about the deal see our earlier coverage: HPE spins off remaining Autonomy assets – including IDOL engine – in Micro Focus tie-up