The Daily Telegraph

MP accuses Government of ignoring needs of British business as Mike Lynch ousted from HP

A former cabinet minister has accused the Government of "cosying up" to big US corporations at the expense of British technology companies, a day after Mike Lynch, the founder of UK software giant Autonomy, was ousted from Hewlett-Packard after "very disappointing" revenues.

Speaking in Parliament, Labour MP John Denham said: "In the time ministers in this Government had dozens of meetings with Google, Autonomy one of the few British IT companies to achieve a global status has been taken over and today tragically destroyed.

"Can I suggest to ministers instead of spending so much time cosying up to American giants who just want to protect their monopoly, they talk to people like Mike Lynch, the founder of Autonomy, to understand why it is so difficult for British innovative companies to get the long-term finance on their own accounts they need to become global leaders themselves."

Mr Lynch's unexpected departure comes less than a year after he sold the business he founded to the US computer maker for $10.3bn (£6.6bn). His exit date has not yet been settled but he is expected to walk away with a payout, on top of the $800m he has already pocketed from the sale.

Universities and science minister David Willetts said the Government always dealt with companies on an "equitable" basis: "Let's make it absolutely clear. I talk and my fellow ministers talk on an even and equitable basis, of course with Autonomy and Mike Lynch, and with HSB, and with Google," he told Parliament.

HP said that Autonomy, which specialises in pattern recognition and software which can search "unstructured data", such as voicemails, had failed to match expectations over the last quarter as it struggled to close deals.

"It is not the product. It’s not the market. It’s not the competition. This is classic entrepreneurial company scaling challenges – it’s a whole different ball game,” said Meg Whitman, chief executive of the US computer giant.
Sources claim that around a fifth of Autonomy's management team has left since HP bought the company, contradicting Mr Lynch's claims last December that it had not lost not one significant member of staff.
At the time, Mr Lynch also claimed that HP had vowed not to interfere in the day-today-workings of business. "It understands that Autonomy is high-speed, smaller and more agile and it needs to be left that way," he told a conference.

However, HP appears to have changed its mind, and will be replace Mr Lynch with Bill Veghte, HP's chief strategy officer and a former Microsoft executive who was responsible for running its Windows business.