back to article HPE wraps up $8.8bn Micro Focus software dump spin-off

HPE says it has closed the $8.8bn deal to spin off much of its software business with Micro Focus. The enterprise giant said that the deal – which sees HPE merge the unwanted portion of its software operation with the UK-based Micro Focus to create what analysts estimate to be the seventh-largest software vendor in the world …

  1. Nick Kew

    Prescient

    Someone on an investor board once asked if Micro Focus (MCRO) was like a cheaper Autonomy. How prescient! Though MCRO's share price has quadrupled since then, it's still a lot cheaper than Autonomy was at the time HP swallowed it.

    MCRO seems to be quite indecently successful at swallowing up once-great names - from Borland to Novell - and making a successful business of it. My pension fund hopes they make a big success of this latest acquisition. At least it looks more promising than HP swallowing EDS and Autonomy in a vain effort to play MeToo with IBM and Oracle.

    1. Richard 26

      Re: Prescient

      I thought it was more like CA: a residential home where you can pay premium prices for your aging software to be mistreated by indifferent support staff.

      1. Erik4872

        Re: Prescient

        That's the best description of CA's business model I've ever heard. I had a project at work around 2012 migrating a ton of managed devices off of their desktop management product (the former Unicenter from the early 90s.) It was very obvious that they weren't even trying to improve the product beyond making it compatible with new operating systems. They were just milking license fees from customers who felt they were stuck on it for whatever reason.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Prescient

        As an employee of Micro Focus, I cannot give you any inside information, but I suggest that you carefully check our annual reports for R&D investment. We are definitely not a company sitting on our laurels but are working very hard to enhance and integrate the products brought in under different umbrellas -- and I expect that to continue with ArcSight and the other HPE software.

        Public information will reveal that we have offered multiple programs to help move our customers onto the latest and greatest codebase from older software, including compatibility modes to be used while they are training staff on new features before they are enabled,

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Prescient

        As a long standing Micro Focus employee I can confirm that we do a lot of software development, we innovate, and there are a lot of enterprises that have benefited from software they rely on being kept up to date and supported instead of being allowed to wither away. All those developers and support engineers might not be cheap, but there are plenty of customers who think it's good value for money.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Prescient

      Well then!! Six years later, 100,000 corpses in a mountain and still the slashing goes on? So glad I left HP labs all those years ago. Surveying the portrait of corporate disasters I can only conclude someone at HPe is intent on providing text book examples of failure for economics students to reference. Let's look at the iTanic CPU disaster. The take away there was how to pour $32 billion down the drain. Next up was EDS which actually stands for extremely Dumb and Stupid. I know I saw their handiwork at the UK inland revenue. That was all a fat waste of Investor time I estimate poured some $7 billion down the drain. Then there was autonomy. Where do I begin with that one? OMG, that was like the iTanic that deal. I mean seriously, where does HP get all this cash they're blowing out their ass?

      Sure looks like they don't deserve to exist to me.... But what do I know?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'this transaction will deliver approximately $8.8bn to HPE and its stockholders'

    Says it all really.

    Just what does HPE do now?

  3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    "executive chairman Kevin Loosemore"

    You know in the US he'd never get to Board level with a name like that. :-(

    In the UK they have (quietly) gone on building up a business that's kept growing without milking the customers and continuing to invest (although I suspect also encourage people to rationalize away from) their product lines.

    BTW It used to be said that CA's corporate dress code had "Sharkskin Gray" as their suit color to match the big fin on their backs when they came to "re-negotiate" your license fees.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Always had a soft spot for MicroFocus since seeing their attempt to promote their COBOL compiler by using it to write a space invaders game ( can't remember the platform, hey it was ~35 years ago ).

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The new Micro Focus will tackle one of the toughest problems facing infrastructure and operations leaders at all companies that weren't born digital: managing a heterogeneous ecosystem that includes everything from mainframes to containers running in cloud environments."

    There will be plenty of "DevOps" being lived by the old crap and mainly keeping things running? I wish MF all the best.

    1. Korev Silver badge

      "all companies that weren't born digital"

      Which pretty much describes the vast majority of companies. Although that's still marketing speak is less hubristic that we normally get and good to hear a reflection of reality.

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