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Is HP Right? Autonomy Salesperson Shares Internal Emails
Julie188 writes "You know how HP said it uncovered $5 billion worth of 'improper' revenue at Autonomy? One thing HP has accused Autonomy of doing is booking software-as-a-service contracts as software licensing deals. So how might that type of accounting work? A former Autonomy salesperson fighting a legal battle with HP says she's seen it happen firsthand. She's shared internal Autonomy emails and documents that show the details of one deal. '[While working for software company CA, Virginia Briody] had closed a four-year $1.22 million hosting/software-as-a-service deal with a customer, Pioneer Investments, and was paid her full commission, over $100,000, she says. Autonomy bought the software unit from CA on June 9, 2010, and Briody became an employee of Autonomy and Autonomy inherited the Pioneer contract. But there was an issue. Autonomy didn't acquire all the pieces called for in the original contract, Briody says. It didn't have a partnership with the hosting facility and it didn't gain from CA a critical piece of compliance software the customer needed, she says. Autonomy needed to find substitutions or Pioneer would cancel the contract, Briody says. So in the fall of 2010, she signed a new deal with Pioneer and walked away with a four-year, $1.859 million contract of which Autonomy execs considered $1.8 million as new revenue, she says.'"
Not news for nerds, stuff that doesn't matter unless you wear a $1000 suit.
I read TFS. I understood nothing. My nerd days must be over.
Looks like nowadays nerds are those who have deep insight into financial dirt. Forget computers, gadgetry, coding and Science Fiction. Welcome corporatism, financial stuff, sales and so on.
I'm a sad puppy now.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
And I was just re-reading the H-Dogs mad Midstate posts last night...
It is sad.
I've always used HP calculators, my dad tought me RPN, and that's all I've ever used. When I was in school in the 80's, I paid $400 for an HP41 built in Corvallis. When the keys stopped working, I carefully opened the case, cleaned the contacts with a little Carbon Tet and put it back together. Where can you buy a decent RPN device today? Nowhere.
I'm not a hardware guy so I don't use HP scopes (do they even still make bench equipment?), but for my current job with the DoD, I insisted they buy me an RPN calculator. The upside is that no one will steal it off my desk because they can't figure out how to use it.
Today, HO sucks, and unless they want to continue down the road that many tech giants have gone - to exist as brand names only on cheap junk - they need to do something quick.
Prediction: Not going to happen.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Sure she'd like to get the money, but there's also the issue that if the company is going to book revenue in a particular way they have to deal with ALL of the things that go along with that. Companies paying commission don't get to say on one side "this was a great sale and we're going to compensate our executives on a great sales year" and on the other "that's an ok lease agreement you got, too bad commission on those is so low."
That's worse than the old Dilbert where the secretary "neglected" to put anything between the announcements of miserable numbers and an increased United Way push.
fencepost
just a little off