Irony alert: Hewlett-Packard tried to unload Autonomy on SAP
SAP's Bill McDermott said that Hewlett-Packard let them know Autonomy was available. SAP wasn't interested.
- Jon Xavier
- Web Producer-Silicon Valley Business Journal
Fresh off the announcement that it was taking a $8 billion write-down on its purchase of Autonomy Corp., Hewlett-Packard Corp. reportedly tried to sell the troubled software business to SAP.That's according to SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott, who told The Times that HP representatives told them Autonomy was on the market sometime last month. This despite HP CEO Meg Whitman saying publicly that HP was keeping Autonomy, even if most of the value of the deal never materialized.SAP wasn't interested.What's funny about this whole situation is that HP probably never would have bought Autonomy in the first place if it wasn't for SAP. The deal was masterminded by Leo Apotheker, as a part of his bid to take HP more deeply into the enterprise software and services space and go head-to-head with the German tech giant. Autonomy was supposed to be the first salvo in the bombardment Apotheker was to launch at SAP.Instead, a little more than a year later, Apotheker was out, as was his strategy, and HP was left trying to sell the division to the company it was supposed to target.Update: HP issued a response to Business Insider saying, essentially, the report is backwards. "During the past year, we’ve received inquiries from SAP about purchasing HP software assets, and time and again we’ve said 'no,'" the statement said. So there's two versions of this story, and they can't both be true. Either way, it looks like Autonomy will be staying put for the time being.Jon Xavier is Web Producer at the Business Journal. His phone number is 408.299.1826.
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