[benjamind]

I worked for them for a couple of years as a developer. They do have an underlying core technology developed in the very early days of the company which they have exploited to the absolute maximum possible. It works fairly well, but Bayesian analysis of documents is beginning to feel a little old hat.

To be honest I've been waiting for a startup to come around to attempt to disrupt this field, but none has arrived so far that can match the sales team at Autonomy.

They really do concentrate entirely on sales, and have some of the most driven sales people I've ever seen - largely due to seemingly ridiculous bonuses paid to sales staff. That does however lead to issues as some others here have described where they sell technology that doesn't exist - I could tell you some horror stories! The relationship between sales and development there, and the situations sales put the development team in, were the main reasons I left. Having projects dumped on you that were never even discussed with development, 2 weeks before the deadline for implementation, with requirements that were completely unrealistic does not make for good software.

Autonomy always felt like one of those circus performers with the spinning plates. You're always expecting it to collapse, but somehow the sales and legal teams keep the whole thing going.

[sunchild]

I've negotiated against Autonomy before, on behalf of a customer. I've also used their products at various jobs. The company conducts itself like most enterprise vendors – everything is about making the sale while limiting the hard commitments that they make to their customers.

I hated using the product (specifically, iManage) because it was clearly not designed by or for users. It's just another slapped-on solution to shortcomings in the Microsoft platform (closed/obscure document format, lack of public APIs, etc.) I was not impressed by the product in any way whatsoever.

[jgmatpdx]

As corroboration, my first assignment at Autonomy basically amounted to writing (on-site) a component that had been sold without the existence of a single line of code.

I think the obstacles for a startup wouldn't come from Autonomy's core techology---more the amount of stuff they've acquired around the edges. Pieces like KeyView (which is fairly good at reading just about any file format you care to mention) make the whole Autonomy package much more attractive than their search tech would be on its own. Plus, as you said, you have to be willing and able to compete with their sales force, and that seems like a soul-selling endeavor from the beginning.

[benjamind]

Yes, the complete package is what they can offer big business. There are so many pieces to it now that they can turn it to a huge range of different uses.

The problem they have (well at least had when I was there a few years ago) is that nobody understands it all anymore. They've acquired so much technology and have such a high turn over rate of developers (barring a few extremely well rewarded key seniors) that its a constant uphill struggle to change anything or improve significantly, so developers have to just patch things up as best they can.

That burden will eventually catch up with them I would think, but I'm always surprised at how long a bad code-base can be kept alive.

[StephenJ]

Yeah, I have had similar experience. The start-up that will disrupt the space you speak of is PureDiscovery up north in Dallas. I assisted in a Purediscovery implementation in place of Autonomy and the client will never look back. First, they clearly do not have all the bells and whistles Autonomy has (that dont work that well), but on a side by side basis, I had a Purediscovery Index up in 4 hours and the results are light years better than Autonomy. We do not have to re-index our existing data either which is what I think makes the Purediscovery solution so unique. Its funny for me to see all of the comments now about Autonomy. I have been there! Where have all of these people been the past few years? Spinning plates...love it

[arethuza]

Sounds like they might have been acquired for their sales team rather than their technology!

[benjamind]

That is quite likely. They have a huge range of contacts amongst government, educational, financial and just about every other large organisation you can think of. If you wanted to get into retailing software to large business, they would be the people to talk to.

[arethuza]

Given the HP CEO was at SAP he is probably wants to compete with Oracle.

[Duff]

That's hilarious. We kicked them out when the Brit super-salesman in a $10k suit made it clear that they are the most expensive product in the space.

Very old-school approach. Fancy books, etc. We have a stack of beautifully produced product viewbook things from propping up our fax machine.