Autonomy Founder Defends Sales Practices Amid HP Claims
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Mike Lynch, who founded the British software company accused by Hewlett-Packard Co. of falsifying finances, said that while he may have used some of the contested accounting and sales methods, they were all legal.
One of the claims levelled by Hewlett-Packard is that Cambridge, England-based Autonomy mischaracterized some revenue from unprofitable hardware and improperly included it as “license revenue.” The U.S. company said this week it recorded an $8.8 billion writedown related to last year’s purchase of Autonomy and that more than $5 billion of that impairment charge was the result of accounting practices.