Whitman reassures Cambridge staff in Autonomy love-in

HP CEO salutes "magical" technology and pledges to help UK software firm to "mature"

HP chief executive Meg Whitman has stressed that Autonomy and its UK employees are - and will continue to be - a valued part of the HP family.

"It is an almost magical technology," she said of Autonomy's flagship data analytics product. "It plays into a big shift in the market, the area of big data which HP should be in. We remain committed to Autonomy. We remain committed to the brand, to Cambridge, and to the UK."

In addition to expressing support for Autonomy, Whitman said HP was standing firm on its staunch refusal to consider breaking up the company and will resume putting money into research and development and more strategic acquisitions when the vendor's financial outlook improves later this year.

Her kind words for Autonomy are in stark contrast to the rhetoric on the subject coming out of Silicon Valley of late, where officials have bemoaned HP's overpayment for the enterprise search specialist and invited lawyers and government investigators on both sides of the Atlantic to probe allegations that former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch cooked the books in the run-up to the sale.

"What we all understand is that [Autonomy] is a smaller, less profitable, slower-growing company than we had anticipated," said Whitman. "Our job is to mature Autonomy, to put in processes and discipline and customer support that is befitting of a company of HP's stature, and to grow that business."

Whitman added that she'd consider buying Autonomy all over again, though admittedly for a lower price. And she reassured a skittish Cambridge workforce that their jobs were safe and would remain in the UK.

"This is terrific technology," Whitman gushed. "What it allows customers to do is understand all the unstructured data [and its] application to legal and compliance [issues] ... it is terrific technology."

In an aside during a Q&A with reporters, Whitman also added her firm is actively seeking a female director to add to its board in the wake of several executive departures earlier this month.

Whitman said she hoped to add a fourth woman to the board because it's good for the company and "the right thing for society."

"We want HP to be the destination for women interested in technology," Whitman said.

Chris Gonsalves is vice president of editorial at Channelnomics.

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