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| Type | Public (LSE: AU.) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1996 |
| Headquarters | Joint Head Quarters: San Francisco, USA & Cambridge, UK |
| Area served | Global |
| Key people | Dr Michael Richard Lynch, OBE, Founder and CEO Sushovan Hussain, CFO |
| Industry | Information Technology |
| Products | Search engine for unstructured Information |
| Revenue | USD343.4 million (2007) |
| Operating income | USD88.6 million (2007) |
| Net income | USD62.5 million (2007) |
| Employees | 1,300 |
| Website | www.autonomy.com |
Autonomy Corporation PLC (LSE: AU.) is an enterprise software company with joint head quarters in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and San Francisco, USA. The company uses a combination of technologies borne out of research at the University of Cambridge. It develops a variety of enterprise search and knowledge management applications using adaptive pattern recognition techniques centered on Bayesian inference (statistical inference in which evidence or observations are used to update or to newly infer the probability that a hypothesis may be true) in conjunction with traditional methods.
Autonomy is currently listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.[1]
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History
Autonomy was founded in Cambridge, England by Dr Michael Lynch and Richard Gaunt in 1996 as a spin-off from Cambridge Neurodynamics.
Autonomy floated in 1998 on the Easdaq exchange at a share price of approximately 30p. At the height of the "dot com bubble", the peak share price was £30.[2]
In 2000, Autonomy acquired Softsound, a small company spun out of Cambridge University developing speech recognition software.[3]
In 2003, they acquired Virage, a software developer of video search software.[4]
In June 2005, acquired etalk, a business operating in the call center software sector.[5]
In December 2005 Autonomy acquired Verity, Inc., one of its main competitors, for approximately $500m.[6]
In May 2007 after exercising an option to buy a stake of technology start up, Blinkx Inc, and combining it with its consumer division, Autonomy floated Blinkx on a valuation of $250m.[7]
In July 2007 it acquired Zantaz, the leading email archiving and litigation support company, for $375M.[8]
Operations
Autonomy is a proponent in the rapidly growing area of Meaning-Based Computing (MBC). Autonomy's position as a global leader in the sector is acknowledged by analysts including Gartner Group.[9] In November 2007, Autonomy Corporation was presented with an award for the best performing software company in Europe by the European Commissioner for IT.[10]
Products
The main technology is called Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL), and is to unstructured information what an RDBMS is to structured information. IDOL allows search and processing of text, audio, video, and structured information. The processing of such information by IDOL is referred to by industry analysts as the Meaning-Based Computing sector.[11]
At its core, Autonomy's technology can understand any form of unstructured information, whether text, voice, or video, and based on that understanding perform automatic operations on the information.[9]
Customers
Autonomy also has over 300 OEM partners and more than 400 Value-added resellers and integrators, numbering among them are leading companies such as Citrix, EDS, Novell and Symantec. [12]
Offices
Autonomy has major offices in the US, the UK, Canada, France, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Germany and smaller offices throughout Europe and Latin America.
Senior management
The Company's Board includes:
- Dr Michael Richard Lynch
- Richard Gaunt
- Sushovan Hussain
- Barry Ariko
- John McMonigall
- Richard Perle
References
- ^ Fresnillo, Inmarsat, Autonomy, Stagecoach enter ftse 100 reshuffle
- ^ "What that £10k is worth now", 31st Dec 2001, zdnet.co.uk
- ^ Autonomy boosts profits twelvefold
- ^ "Autonomy swoops on Virage", 11 July 2003, The Register
- ^ Autonomy to acquire etalk
- ^ "Autonomy buys Verity", Information World Review
- ^ Blinkx IPO goes ahead
- ^ Autonomy buys Zantaz
- ^ a b Gartner Group: Autonomy
- ^ Truffle 100
- ^ What is meaning-based computing
- ^ autonomy.com customer list
External links
- Company site
- "The Quest for Meaning" WIRED
- What Is Meaning-Based Computing?
- Michael Lynch On Meaning-Based Computing
- Virage
- etalk
- Cardiff
- ZANTAZ
