Autonomy

HP Kills TouchPad, Buys Autonomy:
Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest computer maker, today announced it is in talks to buy Autonomy, a business software maker, for about $10 billion and plans to spin off its personal-computer business, reports Bloomberg.Hewlett-Packard will discontinue its line of products running its WebOS operating system, including TouchPad tablets, the company said today.The company is considering paying a premium – some $10 billion – for Autonomy, people familiar with the matter said earlier. Autonomy’s main technology, ‘Intelligent Data Operating Layer‘ (IDOL), allows search and processing of text taken from database, audio, video or text files or streams.HP said that it will take a hit to fiscal 2011 earnings of $1.16 a share to $1.23 a share as it restructures and shuts down WebOS devices and related operations.There were signs that TouchPad sales were bleak, but a complete shutdown of WebOS operations was unexpected, notes C/Net.