Autonomy report “record” 2009

Search specialist Autonomyhad a record 2009, partly as a result of its acquisition of enterprise content management software vendor Interwoven. Cambridge based Autonomy today reported that for the full year ending December 31, 2009 its revenues had increased by 47 per cent. Autonomy has reported its highest revenues and profits in the company’s history with record full year and quarter four profits for 2009. Full year revenues increased by 47 per cent and full year profits from operation were up by 59 per cent. Full year revenues of $740 million were achieved through “organic growth” and gross profits of $652m were 42 per cent higher than 2008. Autonomy acquired Interwoven in February 2009 and describes the integration of the company as complete and successful. Autonomy paid $775m for Interwoven and Group CEO Mike Lynch described the deal to CIO UK as an extension of the firm’s shift towards serving the governance, risk and compliance market rather than an embrace of traditional enterprise content management (ECM). “We’re a great believer that the traditional model of content management will change because of this Managed In Place thing,” he said, referring to Autonomy’s model for automatically managing information in real time without manually relocating data, for example to a dedicate records management system.”

In a statement Lynch (pictured) described the economy in 2009 as “at best difficult”, before revealing that Autonomy invested in its technology despite the difficult economy. “During 2009 Autonomy did a lot of work to prepare for a possible upturn in 2010, including significant new IDOL product development, launches and expansion of our IDOL hosted capabilities.”

Autonomy still sealed 66 new deals over $1m last year and 47 new original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreements. In the fourth quarter in won business from American Airlines, AT&T, BAE Systems, Citi, Ericsson, KPMG, McAfee, Merck, Peugeot Citroen, Qatar Airways, Santander, Whirlpool and publishers Wolters Kluwer. A strong presence in the government and secret services community continued with new deals with NATO, and the UK, Brazil, Romania and Sweden.

“Regulation and litigation remain search drivers and we’re seeing a lot more on e-commerce so companies understand what people are interested in and what they’re trying to buy rather than just relying on the old keyword box,” says Nicole Eagan, chief marketing officer at Autonomy told CIO UK recently in an analysis of the enterprise search market.