HP considered Tibco, Teradata before Autonomy: report
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Bloomberg report suggests that acquiring a fast-growing, second-tier software company was the priority, not Autonomy's specific technology
Before deciding to acquire UK information management provider Autonomy, Hewlett-Packard considered acquiring middleware vendor Tibco and data warehousing specialist Teradata, according to a report from the Bloomberg news agency.
Once again citing "people with direct knowledge of the situation ... who declined to be identified", Bloomberg reports that HP made an offer for Tibco earlier in the year, but that CEO Vivek Ranadive "held out for a higher bid".
The company also considered acquiring Teradata, Bloomberg reports, although it does not suggest an offer was made.
Tibco and Teradata have yet to comment on the report.
The three companies are related, in that they help organisations manage data, but their technologies are very different. What sets them apart from their peers is their rapid growth.
Tibco's revenues grew by 25% to $216 million in its most recent financial quarter, while Teradata grew by 24% to $470 million. Autonomy grew slightly slower, by 16% to $256 million.
What this suggests is that HP's priority in selecting its acquisition target was to find a fast growing software (although Teradata also sells appliances) company in the data management arena.
It makes sense to acquire successful companies, of course, but this does raise questions over whether there is an explicit technology strategy behind HP's Autonomy acquisition.
This was identified as a critical success factor for HP's strategic turnaround by TechMarketView analyst Angela Eager. "I'm looking to see ... a coherent strategy about how they are going to make the cloud and information management central," she told Information Age last week
