“The former management team of Autonomy was shocked to see this statement today, and flatly rejects these allegations, which are false.  It took 10 years to build Autonomy’s industry leading technology, and it is sad to see how it has been mismanaged since its acquisition by HP.”-Mike Lynch, former CEO of Autonomy

21 November 2012, that’s the response to Hewlett Packard’s Meg Whitman accusations that Autonomy tricked the struggling computer and printer maker into buying them in 2011 (Whitman was not running HP at that time).

Whitman is blaming a surprise 3rd quarter net loss of $6.9 billion(!) USD on the Autonomy purchase.  Compare that to same time last year when HP reported a $200 million profit.

The takeover of Autonomy was led by Leo Apotheker, who resigned as HP’s CEO a month later.

Whitman now says Autonomy officials used accounting tricks to hide gross “irregularities”.  But here’s the problem; HP hired an independent auditor to go over Autonomy’s books, then hired another auditor to verify the first auditor’s conclusions.  They both said the books were good to go!

Here’s another problem; the current board of directors for HP is still made up of almost every director that was involved in the Autonomy takeover.

Former Autonomy CEO, Mike Lynch, says HP is using the company he created as a scapegoat, to cover up other losses due to HP’s mismanagement.

HP also reported that almost all areas of their operation experienced drops in sales during their 3rd quarter, except for software which increased (and that included software from Autonomy).

Meg Whitman said 2013 is not going to be a good year: “Fiscal 2013 is going to be a fix-and-rebuild year for the company as critical changes to organizational structure take hold. We expect the underlying macro and industry head winds to continue as we enter 2013.”