British Palantir rival, whose founder touted UK tech sovereignty, sells to Accenture

Accenture plans to buy UK-based AI firm Faculty, a Palantir competitor, and onboard the company’s CEO as Accenture’s new chief technology officer. The move suggests the two companies, while partners today, could start taking each others' business. Faculty was founded in the UK by New Zealand-born physicist Marc Warner in 2014 …

[trevorde]

At least it's not Crapita

[HXO]

Eh. They are all the same, I could not tell Accenture and TCS apart. Or any of the many other rentals BigCorp thought were better options, than investing in their own people. I am not against rentals for specific tasks, but they are a bad choice for long term stability and knowledge retention.

[neilg]

Or Atos.

[Tron]

Like a football match where you want both sides to lose.

If you are thinking of handing over a tonne of your company's cash to any of these companies for AI software, you really should shoot yourself in the foot. Your replacement may consider the lack of ROI and decline to waste money on the scam du jour that is AI.

The real AI money is in government contracts, as governments are generally dumber than corporates and have access to unlimited amounts of other peoples' money (tax revenue/borrowing).

In terms of IT sovereignty, the UK has some options in the Pi that most countries do not, should they ever bother to max out its mainstream potential.

[Wiretrip]

Oh well, with Accenture in charge, if Faculty wasn't dead already it will be soon...

[Catch-the-Pigeon]

money in the bank

Saw a post on linkedin for palantir consultants, daily rates for these are around £1000+ mark, more for some products. With the geo-political issues in the US and the worries about data sovereignty this is a shrewd move by Accenture. As mentioned above the various givernments will just pay whatever it takes , in the end the suppliers of consultants is an easy "loads of money" contracts.

[m4r35n357]

UK business in a nutshell

Cash the fuck out as quickly as possible.

[cookiecutter]

WHY?!!!!

why is everything in this country up for sale?! I mean jesus! Do we not want any manufacturing, any technology firm, any arms firm domestically owned?!

If someone speaks to a russian online... BOOM there we go! jail for you MoFo... want to sell our infrastructure or just inventive firms to anyone & everyone? yeah go ahead!

The aristocracy are desperate to take this country back to them & us underpaid plebs. I swear when they saw IT guys in the 90s/00s driving porches they exploded with anger & decided to fuck us all as nice stuff is for THEM!

Then when I say on an MOD post on linkedin that only a masochist would do this new military year out bullshit, the sheer levels of butt hurt from people who refuse to accept that the youf are fucked now & they STILL expect them to get up and walk into a machine gun to protect the assets of the wealthy....

[hoola]

Re: WHY?!!!!

What is this to do with the aristocracy?

The other points are correct but you are just doing what is has been bloated by so many on Social Media and the news, all the UK's problems are the fault of "The Wealthy " and pensioners.

This is the owners taking the money and running because the only thing that matters in the UK is short term gain. Now combine that with rank stupidity and general incompetence from politicians and every of value is sold.

The list is endless with names like

ARM

Cadbury

Cobham

[b1k3rdude]

Accenture are a sh1t company to work for, ask me how I know. Make note of the phrase - "as long as there a hole in my ar$e" will I ever work for them again"

And don’t forget they used to be called 'Anderson Consulting', they changed thier name, after they were caught fraudulently fiddling the accounts for Enron back in the 90's

- https://ransfords.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-impossible-revival-why-andersen.html

Accenture in the UK at least, mostly employs persons of Indian Asian decent and treats them very poorly. Accenture overwork and underpay thier staff (I have personal exp. of this). And the same corrupt practices from the Anderson days continue under this new name -

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accenture

[Michael Strorm]

Not defending Accenture or disagreeing with anything else you said- I don't have personal experience of them), but this bit...

And don’t forget they used to be called 'Anderson Consulting', they changed their name, after they were caught fraudulently fiddling the accounts for Enron back in the 90's

...specifically the highlighted section, is incorrect.

From this post I made a few years ago in response to a similar comment:-

If you're referring to the Enron scandal that enveloped then destroyed their accountants Arthur Anderson- which Anderson Consulting/Accenture was a spinoff from- that had nothing to do with [the name change].

Quite the opposite, Accenture is generally considered to have been *very* lucky to have avoided guilt by association by (coincidentally) changing their name at the start of 2001, just months before the problems at Enron became public and rapidly snowballed.

Wikipedia claims that this [was] due to a court-ordered name change as part of an arbitration case that resulted in the final severing of ties between Arthur Anderson and AC/Accenture less than six months prior.

So, yeah, they were very lucky to have severed ties *just* before the scandal hit, but Enron wasn't the reason AC/Accenture changed their name.

The article you linked to actually backs this up. ("Internal disputes over profit-sharing led to a legal separation in 2000, culminating in the rebranding of Andersen Consulting as Accenture in 2001. This move proved to be fortuitous, as it insulated Accenture from the fallout of Arthur Andersen’s collapse in 2002 following its involvement in the Enron scandal.").

[nobody who matters]

2why is everything in this country up for sale?!"

Greed, pure and simple.

And it has nothing to do with the Aristocracy - these are "New Money" people who are doing this, not the so-called upper classes.

[Dave Pickles]

Selling England by the Pound.

[Johnb89]

We'd like UK startups to not sell out, but why wouldn't they?

This is the Nth example of a small UK company selling out to foreign interests. People don't seem to like that.

But... If you owned such a company and someone offered you, personally, a few billion or whatever, what would you do? That is the problem. It would be nice if that someone was a UK entity, sure, and it sometimes is. Often not.

What would YOU do?

[Excused Boots]

From the original article; "“safely deliver the AI revolution.”

So, just how is that working out?

[amanfromMars 1]

Much better than was expected and never suspected methinks answers that question

From the original article; "“safely deliver the AI revolution.”

So, just how is that working out? ..... Excused Boots

AI has no complaints, Excused Boots.