Autonomy defies economy with strong revenue and positive outlook

Its full year revenue of $740m, was up 47% from 2008 including strong organic.

growth while its operating margins were at 44% compared to 41% the previous.

year..

Mike Lynch, Group chief executive, Autonomy said today: “Looking back on.

2009, despite an economic environment that can be described at best as.

difficult, and an unhelpful foreign exchange headwind, Autonomy produced.

outstanding results with adjusted profit from operations growing by 59% at a.

time when most of our software peers have seen small or negative growth. We.

delivered this strong growth on top of an exceptionally strong performance in Q4.

2008.”.

During 2009 Autonomy braced itself for a possible upturn in 2010 with efforts.

including significant IDOL product developments, launches and expansion of its.

IDOL hosted capabilities and increasing investment to 26% in research and.

development. In keeping up with the trends in meaning-based computing, the.

company extended its technologies from the unstructured world to the structured..

Lynch said: “After this exceptional expenditure we are now seeing our cost.

base return to its traditional model with an operating margin of 50% in the.

fourth quarter. The driver for our business is the need for computers to.

understand and process human friendly information automatically. We believe this.

driver will continue to accelerate, and as customers find discretionary budgets.

again we expect to see good growth in the meaning based marketing applications.

of our technology alongside our resilient information governance applications..

“We continue to see our strongest growth in the new models of the software.

industry such as OEM and cloud computing. Whilst it may still take a little time.

for people to understand how these models differ from traditional software.

businesses, we believe the momentum in these areas is accelerating.”.

In 2010, Autonomy will leverage on the surge in meaning based computing.

portfolio as well as the ever-expanding understanding in the market of the.

challenges associated with unstructured information..

“At the very end of Q4 2009 we began to see some indicators of an initial.

improvement in the macro environment, which gives us confidence in the outlook.

for 2010, and accordingly we are adjusting our business plan."

Taken from here