Global News
Although not officially announced yet, rumours in the legal technology community about a management buy-out by the WorkSite founders are getting stronger each day. Updates to our original story are in italics.
Sources close to HP Autonomy confirmed this news to Legal IT Professionals and told us that the iManage team is preparing the management buy-out to continue as independent company.
Another source close to HP Autonomy told us that this buy-out has been in the works for a long time and was supposed to have happened months ago. The original NetRight Technologies / iManage people (currently still working at HP Autonomy) will be taking the company private imminently. We were told that this buy-out will be financed without the help of outside investors. This only shows the faith that the original iManage people have in their own strategy and product. The White Rabbit project (HTML5-based WorkSite client) will continue, in fact, beta-test customers are already lined up.
One of the main reasons for the management buy-out is the fact that the WorkSite management team was hampered by HP, mainly on the marketing front. Having the company under own management will make the new iManage company more agile in many ways, something that is of utmost importance in these days of fierce competition in the legal document management niche.
IDOL (the search technology) is likely to stay with HP and might stay part of WorkSite through some cross-licensing arrangement.
Workflow (APA, formerly Cardiff Liquid Office) will stay with HP, as will Teleforms (the latter because it ties into HP’s scanner business). No further news about what will happen with LinkSite, which is currently hosted by HP. All of the records management products will be/have been killed, and will not go with iManage, according to the same source we spoke earlier today.
Other rumours concern the lay-off of half of the iManage staff and all of the Big Data people at HP, although this has not been confirmed by other sources. In fact, another source told us that these lay-offs are not on the agenda and this is now confirmed by other sources, so no lay-offs on the radar.
It is anticipated that in spite of the rumours getting stronger, the official news will be announced either at ILTA or at HP's fiscal year's end (October). It now seems that the official announcement will be made before ILTA's annual conference later this year (August).
More information to follow as it becomes available.
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