“Today, enterprise customers demand not only exceptional innovation from vendors but also financial stability and the reassurance that you will be there to support them over the years, providing the ability to expand their platform as their needs dictate,” said Autonomy CEO Dr. Mike Lynch. “Autonomy’s stellar performance to date provides this reassurance.” Other leading measures of Autonomy’s recent success include:
- Autonomy’s share price has risen 58% since January.
- The last quarter (Q2) was the 30th consecutive quarter of profitability, the highest second quarter and half-year revenues and profits in our 11-year history, and the company crossed a $4 billion market cap.
- Q2 saw organic license growth of over 30%
- Approximately 40% of revenue in Q2 came from repeat customers.
- Autonomy saw a positive cash flow from operations of $39.0 million, up 62% from 2006 and a now has a positive cash balance of $75 million with no net debt.
- U.S. Department of Defense granted Autonomy with a Special Security Agreement
- The blinkx demerger was completed with successful share placing
- The acquisition of ZANTAZ was announced; a seminal moment in Autonomy’s history that generated positive reactions by leading customers, financial and industry experts.
- Standardisation deals consistently increased in the first half of the year including those with Morgan Stanley, Vanguard, Nationwide US, Nissan, the Metropolitan Police and a number of government agencies.
- Autonomy now has near-complete dominance in the OEM market with virtually every major software sector using Autonomy. The total number of OEMs is more than 350 and includes such names as EMC, FileNet, Vignette, Cisco, Oracle, Siemens, Interwoven, Symantec, Novell, EDS, IBM, Citrix, BEA, Xerox, Unisys, Kana, TIBCO, Supportsoft and Adobe.
Key Market Drivers Favor Meaning-Based Computing
Autonomy’s strategic value in the enterprise has risen with the proliferation of unstructured information and with changes in regulatory requirements. In addition, Autonomy’s high-end “Meaning-Based Computing” solution is increasingly becoming a competitive differentiator. Meaning-Based Computing enables computers to understand the relationships that exist between disparate pieces of information and perform sophisticated analysis operations with real business value, automatically and in real-time. Meaning-Based Computing extends far beyond traditional methods such as keyword search which simply allow users to find and retrieve data. Keyword search engines for example cannot comprehend the meaning of information; these products were developed simply to find documents in which a word occurs.
With an ever increasing win rate, Autonomy’s more holistic approach to unstructured information has attracted a wave of new and repeat customers in 2007 including Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, Standard & Poors, Vodafone, Telecom Italia, Deloitte, Coca Cola, Dow Jones, CNN, The Telegraph, Reed Business, Mercedes Benz, McAfee, EMC, Lockheed Martin, City of London Police, NATO and a wide range of governments. This stream of customers is so strong that the Financial Times recently noted, “Autonomy’s search technology is becoming a de facto standard for companies,” (July 4, 2007).
"The search and discovery market is one of the fastest growing software markets today," said Susan Feldman, Research Vice President, Content Technologies at IDC. "That's because search is the only simple to use gateway to enterprise information. The technology has become pervasive and IDC expects the search and discovery market to continue its growth trajectory in 2007. Autonomy provides both a broad information management and access platform and a set of solutions to address problems like compliance, information-based workflow, and contact center response and reporting. This breadth of vision positioning Autonomy as both an infrastructure player and provider of focused solutions is a wise approach in a chaotic fast-changing market."
Meaning-Based Computing Also Drives Partner Momentum
Autonomy also has experienced an ever-increasing number of SIs and VARs announcing their commitment to build their business around Autonomy’s Meaning-Based Computing, awarding Autonomy preferred partner status. Unisys and WM-Data, a division of LogicaCMG, are just two such examples from 2007. This trend looks set to continue. During an informal poll of 250 attendees at the Autonomy Partner Summit held in May of this year, 52% identified Meaning-Based Computing as the technology that will have the greatest impact in the way that we interact with information and computers in the next ten years.
“Autonomy is leading the industry on both complete product offerings and innovation and its success in larger deals will act as a catalyst for more standardization deals and its emergence as the dominant corporate standard” (Citigroup, July 2007).