SonicWall's CEO this week opened up on the issues its brief ownership by Dell caused partners. But it's not the only example of an acquisition volte-face by a large vendor causing pain for the channel
1) HP and Autonomy
HP's $11.7bn acquisition of UK software firm Autonomy in 2012 is generally considered to be one of the worst of all time.
It all started off so well, with Autonomy founder Mike Lynch paraded as the star attraction at HP's 2012 partner conference. Lynch's showcasing of Autonomy's augmented reality technology was hailed as one of the event's highlights, with the then-new HP boss Meg Whitman full of praise for the "British Bill Gates".
But the love-in soon ended.
HP fired Lynch in May of the same year, citing disappointing licence sales.
Then came the bombshell in November 2012 that HP had called in the US SEC and the UK's Serious Fraud Office after taking a $5bn charge relating to alleged "serious accounting improprieties" it claimed it had uncovered in Autonomy's finances. Lynch denied the allegations and a bitter legal and PR battle, which is still being fought today, ensued.
Inevitably, the channel was caught up in the furore. Two US resellers were reportedly implicated in the fraud HP alleged took place. And the following year, HP launched an Autonomy channel scheme after admitting it had been 'too hard' for VARs to justify investing in its technology to date.
But with rumours that HP was planning to offload Autonomy to SAP, it was perhaps inevitable that HP would quickly move to end its association with the brand.
Such a move perhaps came later than anticipated, with HPE reaching a deal to sell its non-core software assets - including Autonomy - to UK software firm Micro Focus in September 2016 for a relatively paltry $8.8bn.