Hewlett-Packard Loses Billions on Sketchy Buyout of Autonomy - The Daily Beast

Perhaps this deal debacle will lead to HP losing its autonomy – i.e., to HP being acquired and selectively dismantled, e.g., by Oracle.  An excerpt from The Daily Beast article, which suggests both Deloitte and KPMG have some explaining to do (along with HP’s board…):

“Autonomy, a software and institutional services company, was one of HP’s main British rivals before the acquisition—the logic was that HP could expand beyond its ailing hardware business and start competing in the software sector. But even at the time, many investors (and bloggers) slammed Autonomy as overpriced. Moreover, in September 2011, Oracle accused the British company of lying, after it denied approaching the American software giant in an attempt to sell itself. “After the sales pitch was over,” the company said, “Oracle refused to make an offer because Autonomy’s current market value of $6 billion was way too high.” Lest there be any doubt in how much Autonomy had angered Oracle, it even put the company’s sales pitch slides online at Oracle.com/PleaseBuyAutonomy.”

And yes, the slides are still there…

Hewlett-Packard Loses Billions on Sketchy Buyout of Autonomy - The Daily Beast