back to article IBM nabs Platform for cloud control freakery

If you want Big Blue to buy your software company some day, you can increase the odds by moving it near Toronto – that location just did the trick for Platform Computing. The center of gravity for IBM's Software Group, excepting its operating systems, is centered around the Canadian industrial and financial capital, and has …

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  1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    WTF?

    Ahem again.....

    So, IBM buys a company (for an undisclosed amount) that makes $70m revs a year off 530 employees, to target a market of possibly $14bn, whereas hp buys a company that made $256m revs in just the last quarter, in a market worth $55bn, yet TPM is bleating long and hard about how hp is "distracted" and the IBM buy is so much smarter? Sorry, but there's rose-tinted glasses and then there's Big Blue blinkers.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Holmes

      Why did IBM buy this Company?

      Simply because it fitted very well into that part of their business portfolio.

      Sum of the parts and all that....

      My guess is that it will take quite some time and more than a little cash to integrate Autonomy into the HP business.

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Happy

        RE: Why did IBM buy this Company?

        ".....My guess is that it will take quite some time and more than a little cash to integrate Autonomy into the HP business." By the looks of it, hp are letting the Autonomy crew run as a business inside the company for now, probably so they can maintain their links to other software companies (Iike SAP, Oracle, IBM, Micro$oft, etc, etc). Sounds like IBM has more of an integration job to do.

        BTW, forgot to mention that the Autonomy peeps made that $256m quarter off 175 staff, which makes each Autonomy staffer about 5.7 times as revenue productive as the average Paltform Computing staffer. I'm beginning to think TPM's constant jibes about Autonomy are like the Dell comments when hp outbid them for 3par - were IBM in the hunt for Autonomy as well as Oracle?

  2. Allison Park

    HP over paid

    Everyone knows HP over paid...just look at all the Ellison/Hurd press about the deal.

    HP paid $5M per employee for Autonomy, I am guessing just a few of them had stock/options and are spending a good part of their day picking out their vacation home in Croatia.

    Platform looks like one of those companies that has a great product just not enough people selling it making it the perfect opportunity.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Stop

      RE: HP over paid

      "Everyone knows HP over paid...just look at all the Ellison/Hurd press...." What, because Larry didn't get to buy the company hew wanted we're supposed to assume he's going to make only honest and fair appraisals of the purchase? Yeah, that sounds so reasonable, just what we have come to expect from Larry, so I suppose we should also be listening to Larry when he says he's going to smash IBM? Excuse me whilst I roll on the floor laughing.

      ".....Platform looks like one of those companies that has a great product just not enough people selling it making it the perfect opportunity." But it's been trying for 19 years, and with partnerships with all the major vendors, yet none of those other vendors has shown the slightest interest in buying them. Could the reason be it's just too niche? And then there's the small fact IBM don't seem too keen to say exactly how much they paid for the massively-less productive Platform staff.

      All in all, TPM's "assessment" was massively premature without the cost info, and his continued bitching anout the Autonomy buy sounds more and more like IBM fanboi sour grapes. Would Autonomy have been a good fit for IBM to match with DB2 to take on the likes of SAP and Oracle? It certainly would have, and a much better one than Platform. Especially considering the architecture that looks like being the basis of most clouds is going to be x64, an area where IBM is looking to offload more and more to Lenovo.

      1. tpm (Written by Reg staff)

        Re: RE: HP over paid

        The Autonomy deal would not make sense for anyone at that price. My issue with it in regards to HP is that it has effectively eliminated all of its options to invest its cash in its own projects or to make other acquisitions. There may have not been a better deal for HP to have done, but that doesn't make this the right one, either.

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