HP Autonomy, previouslyAutonomy Corporation PLC, was an enterprise software company which was merged with Micro Focus in 2017 and OpenText in 2023 (OpenText had acquired the content management assets of Autonomy in 2016). It was founded in Cambridge, United Kingdom in 1996.
Autonomy was acquired by Hewlett-Packard (HP) in October 2011. The deal valued Autonomy at $11.7 billion (£7.4 billion). Within a year, HP had written off $8.8 billion of Autonomy's value. HP claimed this resulted from "serious accounting improprieties" and "outright misrepresentations" by the previous management. The former CEO, Mike Lynch, alleged that the problems were due to HP's running of Autonomy.
HP recruited Robert Youngjohns, ex-Microsoft president of North America, to take over HP Autonomy in September 2012. In 2015, HP was split into HP Inc and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE); HP Autonomy assets were divided between them with HPE taking the larger part. HP Inc later sold its Autonomy content management assets to Canadian software company OpenText in 2016. In 2017, HPE sold remaining Autonomy assets, as part of a wider deal, to the British software company Micro Focus. In 2023, OpenText acquired Micro Focus, reunited the two halves of former Autonomy assets.
