给Autonomy首席执行官麦克•林奇的一些建议：你尽可以在私人谈话中混淆是非。但如果你留下了幻灯片，所以要么和盘托出，要么三缄其口。

    Autonomy是一家英国企业软件供应商，惠普（HP）此前同意以103亿美元将其收购。不过在随后的一次营收电话会议上，甲骨文（Oracle）首席执行官拉里•埃里森表示：“Autonomy曾向我们兜售过自己……我们评估了报价，认为高得离谱。”

    让我们先看看第二部分。价格当然高得离谱。相比Autonomy在伦敦交易所的交易价格，溢价高达80%。事实上，当惠普新任首席执行官梅格•惠特曼被问及她的前任是否出价过高时，她回应称：“Autonomy物有所值。”

    不过，埃里森陈述的第一部分才是我写作本篇文章的原因。Autonomy首席执行官麦克•林奇对《华尔街日报》（WSJ）称，Autonomy向甲骨文自我兜售的说法“非常不准确……如果有某家银行恰好将我们列为潜在收购目标，那也与我们毫无干系。”

    不过上周四，甲骨文决定反戈一击。它发布了一份幻灯片，这是林奇在2011年4月一次会议上向甲骨文总裁马克•赫德演示时使用的。以下链接是幻灯片的第一部分和第二部分。文件里的确能列出了一家银行，不过这可不是随随便便的“某家银行”。而是投资银行Qatalyst Partners，Autonomy所聘请的收购顾问正是该银行。而且，甲骨文还表示，Qatalyst的创始人弗兰克•夸特隆也出席了4月份的会议。

    现在皮球又踢给了麦克•林奇，不过我实在想不出除了认栽，林奇还会有什么别的办法。也许他还能保持沉默，其实他一开始就应该这样做。

    最新消息1：Autonomy再次反驳。其主旨是指出，我之前所说的大错特错。Autonomy的声明如下：

    2011年4月， 在弗兰克•夸特隆的引荐下，Autonomy和马克•赫德进行了一次大约三十到四十分钟的会谈。甲骨文是Autonomy的客户。我们当时明确表示Autonomy并未寻求出售，也没有展开任何出售行动。当时，夸特隆先生的公司还没有受聘于Autonomy。从那以后，我们和甲骨文再没有任何接触。

    投资银行很有可能独自向业界其它公司推销Autonomy，这是很普遍的做法，不过这并非出自我们的要求。Qatalyst已经通知我们，甲骨文不久前在其网站上公布的幻灯片是Qatalyst准备的，后者在1月26日自行将其发送给甲骨文（幻灯片内容可以明显看出是1月份制作的）。我们是第一次看到这些幻灯片。Autonomy与此事毫无关系，而Qatalyst也是直到今年年中才被Autonomy聘请。Autonomy并未在会议上展示这些幻灯片。

    最新消息2：弗兰克•夸特隆通过科技博客Alphaville发表声明，对其客户关于时间的说法表示支持。

    “甲骨文公开展示的幻灯片是我在1月份时发给马克•赫德的，是由Qatalyst准备的，用于我们独自向甲骨文推介Autonomy。在4月份我们与马克和道格的会面上，这些幻灯片并未被使用。”

    如果还有第三次更新的话，千万不要吃惊。甲骨文很有可能进行反驳（短短几个小时之内，它就从进攻者变成了防御者。）

    Some advice for Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch: You can obfuscate about what is said in a private conversation. But if you also leave behind a slide-deck, it's best to either come clean or keep your mouth shut.

    Autonomy is the British enterprise software company that HP (HPQ) agreed to buy last month for $10.3 billion. In a subsequent earnings call, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said: "Autonomy was shopped to us... We looked at the price and thought it was absurdly high."

    Let's take the second part first. Of course it was absurdly high. An 80% premium to where Autonomy was trading in London! In fact, here is how newly-installed HP CEO Meg Whitman responded when asked if her predecessor overpaid: "It is what it is."

    The first part of Ellison's statement, however, is the reason for this post. Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch told WSJ that the idea of Autonomy shopping itself to Oracle (ORCL) was "inaccurate... If some bank happened to come with us on a list, that is nothing to do with us."

    Today Oracle laid down the boom, posting a slide-deck that Lynch gave to Oracle president Mark Hurd during an April 2011 meeting. Here is Part 1, and here is Part 2. You'll notice that a bank is listed on the deck, but it's not just "some bank." It's Qatalyst Partners, the shop retained by Autonomy. Moreover, Oracle says that Qatalyst founded Frank Quattrone was present at the April meeting.

    The ball is now in Mike Lynch's court, but I can't imagine what he can do at this point but fall on his sword. Or maybe just keep quiet, like he should have in the first place.

    Update: Well, Autonomy is fighting back again. And basically suggesting that statements like my lead graph are way off base. In a statement Autonomy says:

    In April 2011, there was a meeting for approximately thirty or forty minutes between Autonomy and Mark Hurd, which was set up by Frank Quattrone as an introduction to Mark Hurd. Oracle is an Autonomy customer. It was made clear that Autonomy was not for sale and no sale process was under way. Mr. Quattrone's company was not engaged by Autonomy at that time. There has been no other contact with Oracle since then.

    It may well be that investment banks were independently recommending Autonomy as an acquisition target to industry players – that is standard practice for — but this would not have been at our behest. Qatalyst have informed us that the slides Oracle has recently posted on its website were prepared and sent independently by Qatalyst to Oracle on 26 January (the content is clearly from January). This is the first time we have seen them. Autonomy was not involved in this nor was Qatalyst engaged by Autonomy until mid-year. Autonomy did not present these slides in the meeting.

    Update II: Frank Quattrone is backing the timeline of his client, via a statement to Alphaville:

    "The slides Oracle posted publicly were sent by me to Mark Hurd in January, were prepared by Qatalyst and were for the purpose of our independently pitching Autonomy as an idea to Oracle. These slides were not used in our April meeting with Mark and Doug."

    Don't be surprised if there is a third update, with some sort of rebuttal from Oracle (which has gone from offense to defense in a matter of hours)..