HP Acquires Autonomy for $10 Billion
It's been a big week for HP.
HP last night confirmed that it planned to acquire Autonomy, an information management software firm based in the United Kingdom. The company utilizes a combination of technologies borne out of research at Cambridge University for its development of a variety of enterprise search and knowledge management applications. If all goes according to plan, it will soon become HP's latest acquisition.
Speaking during a quarterly results conference call, HP President and CEO Léo Apotheker said that the company hopes the acquisition of Autonomy will help "accelerate" HP's enterprise software business. The deal, expected to close by the end of this year, is worth $10.3 billion, which equals $42.11 per share for Autonomy. According to PC World, Autonomy and it's 2,700 employees will operate as a business unit within HP and will continue under the leadership of current CEO Mike Lynch.
The news comes at the same time as HP's announcement that it's axing its TouchPad and Pre lines of tablets and smartphones. The company acquired the Pre line and WebOS when it bought Palm last year. HP paid $1.2 billion for the company during former boss Mark Hurd's reign as CEO. At the time, Hurd caused quite a stir when he said he "didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business." Just a day later, Hurd went back on his initial statement and insisted that smartphones are part of the company's WebOS plan.
"When we look at the market, we see an array of interconnected devices, including tablets, printers, and of course, smartphones," he said. "We believe webOS can become the backbone for many of HP's small form factor devices, and we expect to expand webOS's footprint beyond just the smartphone market, all while leveraging our financial strength, scale, and global reach to grow in smartphones."
So much for that.

IMO they seems to be rattled atm, and they are taking the same death road which Sun took, to its ultimate demise. Only difference is that HP is in much better financial shape than Sun was.
I am not sure how buying an enterprise search firm can help HP transform into a software solution provider in near future, real money lies e.g. in CRM/ERP when it comes to software. Just to back this up Oracle made more money simply providing maintenance + license renewals etc. than selling solutions to new customers during the last year, and the biggest of them all in this business SAP is well ahead of Oracle.
/fixed
Toys, all of them, save the printers. And how does HP plan to make money off that stuff if they stopped making tablets and smartphones? No one needs their "software", lol!
Read your email and the internal site! It was in mine. I am not happy with another acquisition. Lets not innovate,lets buy it. I suppose it the world of patten trolling, this is the safer route. We wouldn't have to develop something that looked like another product, even after its been photo-shopped.
Dear webOS Developer,
We have opened the next chapter for webOS, and we understand that you must have many questions. Yesterday we announced that we will focus on the future of webOS as a software platform but we will no longer be producing webOS devices. While this was a difficult decision, it's one that will strengthen our ability to focus on further innovating with webOS as we forge our path forward. Throughout this journey, our developers will continue to be a vital part of the future of webOS.
We will continue to support, innovate and develop the webOS App Catalog. Our intent is to enhance our merchandising and presentation of your great products and to continue to build our webOS app ecosystem.
As many of you are aware, we are currently scheduled to hold many developer events around the world. We are planning to continue with these events, however, due to the recent announcements; the nature of them will change. These updates will be posted on our events registration site this coming week. We are eager to present to you the updated strategy for webOS and to hear your feedback.
Lastly, I wish to express our sincere appreciation for your ongoing support for webOS and the many teams responsible for it here at HP.
This is a particularly dynamic time in the mobile industry and sometimes tough decisions need to be made about not only what to do, but also what not to do. This has been one of those times. Together with our great webOS developer community, we are confident that we will meet the challenges ahead and build momentum for optimal success.
We will be communicating with you frequently over the next few weeks and we look forward to hearing from you throughout this process.
Thanks for your support
Richard Kerris
VP webOS Developer Relations
Yeah... but the PC Desktop/Notebook consumer division was a SMALL part of their business. Unlike HP, they actually create technology and build technology.
HP just sends designs or specs to a few Chinese factories and wait for the cargo ship to arrive.
Really, who would trust a company who totally FUBAR'ed a tablet designed, quit after a few weeks on the market - to totally shutting down an entire division, etc etc.
The MOST press that HP recieved about the TouchPad is its death. Now selling at $100 at various locations like WalMart. I suspect Best Buy, Circuit City, Frys, Federated, Sears and other stores to also sell these off at $100.