HP: Chasing Autonomy Execs the Next Big Thing

June 28, 2014

I read “HP Will Settle 3 Lawsuits Over Its $11 Billion Autonomy Acquisition, Urge Shareholders To Sue Autonomy.” The settlement approach makes sense; otherwise, attorneys would be able to purchase the total output of McLaren and Ferrari before a final decision stumbles from a courtroom.

The write up states:

To recap: less than a year after buying British software maker Autonomy for $11 billion, HP wrote off $8.8 billion and alleged that Autonomy had improperly inflated its revenues and margins, to the tune of $5 billion. HP called it fraud, named a whole bunch of ways it believed Autonomy had done this, and asked for investigations by the authorities.

But the portion of the article that caught my attention was this passage:

The shareholders will agree to drop all claims against HP’s executives and board members, including CEO Meg Whitman, but they will be free to pursue former officials at Autonomy. Plus, the shareholders’ attorneys will “receive fees for helping HP pursue any further claims” Reuters reports.

My take is that HP wants to covert Sir Michael Lynch from the most successful software entrepreneur in England to scapegoat. The only hitch in the git along is that HP bought a company after Board approval.

Fascinating, but the approach may lead to a fundamental breakthrough in computing. That processing power can be applied to HP decision theory problems. Now that Autonomy IDOL is a cloud service, I assume a computer revolution is not too challenging for HP management.

Stephen E Arnold, June 28, 2014

Comments

One Response to “HP: Chasing Autonomy Execs the Next Big Thing”

  1. HP reportedly close to settling suits on Autonomy dealBig Online News | Big Online News on July 27th, 2014 9:58 pm

    […] to settle shareholder lawsuit over plagued acquisition of Autonomy — Tech News and AnalysisHP: Chasing Autonomy Execs the Next Big Thing : Stephen E. ArnoldHP Autonomy Shareholder Lawsuit Settlement 'Imminent'Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) to Settle […]

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