[quote=SK in CV][quote=Allan from Fallbrook]FLU: Lynch, according to Larry Ellison, tried to sell Autonomy to Oracle, but they sent him packing, claiming that Autonomywas way overvalued.
I don’t remember the number that Lynch floated to Oracle, but I want to say it was $2B and Ellison said that was too high. Lynch is vehemently denying that this ever took place, Ellison has been releasing notes, along with the Autonomy slide deck presented.
All of which begs the obvious questions. First, how in the hell did HP get to an $11B valuation number, and, second, how did that insane number survive due diligence?
Perhaps SK, the resident CPA, can answer that because I have no clue.[/quote]
Beats the f outta me. I don’t know if I ever knew that Apotheker was an SAP guy. If I did, I’d certainly forgot it. It kind of sounds to me like he was envisioning some sort of magical synergy between Autonomy and HP that would help redirect and rebrand HP into a space where they’d never been. And if it worked, the price paid would almost be incidental. That synergy never developed. I have slightly better than a laymans understanding of the space Apotheker and the other HP guy that came from Oracle had their backgrounds in. (I spent some time working in that industry.) But I don’t know enough about Autonomy’s product to know whether that synergy was ever realistic. Acknowledging my lack of qualifications, I have my doubts.
When that wishful thinking synergy never developed, blame the numbers. They didn’t write down the acquisition costs by 10 or 20%. They’re claiming now that its worth only 25% of what they paid, down near the price Ellison was discussing. I think it has nothing to do with bad accounting.
I find it almost bizarre that Ellison is saying anything. The NDA’s on these kinds of negotiations are usually pretty damn tight. If he really is sharing presentations, he’s gonna get his ass sued.[/quote]
Ellison doesn’t strike me as someone that cares…Afterall, he was the one that was going well over 100mph with the copper following him all the way to his office in Redwood City…And then as he was getting out he told the cop “I called my lawyer, you talk to him” and went into his office…
Or the guy that will be sailing his yacht while the rest of the company is doing oracleworld….
Or the guy that will land his private plan in SJC afterhours and not give a hoot.
Or the guy that made the statement that the difference between God and Me is that God doesn’t run Oracle.
And with Hurd at his company, I think HP is just Ellison’s sidekick….
I find the irony that HP was trying to get into enterprise software and consulting..They sucked at it…When I was at a leading EAI/B2B company, they approached us because they claimed they had a “breakthrough technology”…. It was called e-Speak..And oh my, those guys talked like they invented the internet…
And yes, SAP software sucks donkey….
Allan, considering that HP also bought EDS and worse so Compaq, it’s pretty evident they don’t know what they’re buying….
Maybe I can try to sell a bridge to HP….
But speaking from experience, enterprise software can be a very dirty business. I use to work at a startup and there were a lot of tricks being played about being a “strategic partner” and “revenue”… Let’s just say it was enough vaporware and smoke and mirrors for the company to get sold to Iona, that subsequently was sold for 1/2 of what Iona paid for the company..Go figure…
