Inception and expansion
Autonomy was founded in Cambridge, England by Michael Lynch and Richard Gaunt in 1996 as a spin-off from Cambridge Neurodynamics, a firm specializing in computer-based fingerprint recognition.[2][3] It used a combination of technologies born out of research at the University of Cambridge and developed a variety of enterprise search and knowledge management applications using adaptive pattern recognition techniques centered on Bayesian inference in conjunction with traditional methods. It maintained an aggressively entrepreneurial marketing approach, and sales controls described as a "rod of iron" - allegedly firing the weakest 5% of its sales force each quarter whilst cosseting the best sales staff "like rock stars".[4]
Autonomy floated in 1998 on the EASDAQ exchange at a share price of approximately £0.30. At the height of the "dot-com bubble", the peak share price was £30.[5][6]
December 2005: Autonomy acquired Verity, Inc., one of its main competitors, for approximately US$500 million.[7] In 2005 Autonomy also acquired Neurodynamics.[8]
May 2007: After exercising an option to buy a stake in technology start up Blinkx Inc, and combining it with its consumer division, Autonomy floated Blinkx on a valuation of $250 million.[9]
July 2007: Autonomy acquired Zantaz, an email archiving and litigation support company, for $375 million.[10]
October 2007: Autonomy acquired Meridio Holdings Ltd, a UK company based in Northern Ireland that specialised in Records Management software, for £20 million.[11]
28 May 2008: Kainos extended its partnership with Autonomy for high-end information processing and Information Risk Management (IRM) to deliver information governance solutions to its customer base.[12]
January 2009: Autonomy acquired Interwoven, a niche provider of enterprise content management software, for $775 million.[13] Interwoven became Autonomy Interwoven and Autonomy iManage.
In 2009 Paul Morland, a leading analyst, started raising concerns about Autonomy's exaggerated performance claims.[14]
June 2010: Autonomy announced that it was to acquire the Information Governance business of CA Technologies. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.[15]
5 May 2011: The Mercedes Formula One team announced an $8 million sponsorship deal with Autonomy, and on 8 July 2010 Tottenham Hotspur FC announced a two-year sponsorship deal with Autonomy for its Premier League kit.[16] For the 2011–12 season Spurs' Premier League shirt featured Autonomy's augmented reality technology Aurasma.[17]
16 May 2011: Autonomy acquired Iron Mountain Digital, a pioneer in E-discovery and online backup solutions provider, for $380 million from Iron Mountain Incorporated.[18]
Acquisition by Micro Focus and OpenText
OpenText acquired HP TeamSite, HP MediaBin, HP Qfiniti, HP Explore, HP Aurasma, and HP Optimost from HP Inc for $170 million on 2 May 2016.[43]
In 2017, HPE sold its Autonomy assets, as part of a wider deal valued at $8.8 billion, to the British software company Micro Focus.[44][45] Micro Focus acquired the operating subsidiary Autonomy Systems Limited and related foreign subsidiaries on 1 September 2017.[46] Legal entity and former parent company Autonomy Corporation Limited was merged with fellow HPE subsidiary ACL Netherlands B.V. and ceased to exist.[47][48]
