HP’s Autonomy: 10 Ways It’s Contributing to HP’s Software Story

by Darryl K. Taft

Robert Youngjohns, who took the helm of HP Autonomy just seven months ago, is focusing the HP Autonomy teams on making customer success the heart of everything the company does; building products with a clear, funded road map; and leveraging the rest of HP to gain access to markets and customers. He spearheaded a significant increase in R&D investment, leading to the ongoing reinvigoration of Autonomy’s lineup. And he encouraged the continued integration of HP Autonomy software across the entire HP portfolio. The early results are promising, and employee turnover has dropped significantly.

Human information—emails, call center conversations, videos and posts on social channels—makes up 90 percent of all data. Many companies struggle to turn this data into knowledge and turn that knowledge into action. HP Autonomy’s core platform, IDOL, is called the OS for human information because it offers a single processing layer for all that data. IDOL uses statistically-driven measures to extract concepts and context, and ultimately, understand meaning. The technology solves some of the toughest challenges regarding how to tap into vast troves of big data in marketing, information governance and regulated industries like law, financial services and government.

Traditionally known as a hardware leader, HP is building out its software story in part by combining the best of both worlds: HP printers plus HP Autonomy software. The latest generation of HP multifunction printers (MFPs) is being integrated with enterprise content management (ECM) software from HP Autonomy, available either on-site or via the cloud. By pairing HP printing technology with HP Autonomy ECM solutions, workers can automatically initiate role-based workflow and classification from printers and scanners, placing the content directly into the cloud. From there, employees can access, organize and leverage information in documents, audio, video, email and Web pages.

Version 2.0 of the Aurasma augmented-reality (AR) platform includes improved object and image recognition, plus a fuller suite of cloud and social features. HP embedded Aurasma technology into a new consumer app called HP Live Photo. Available for iOS, the app lets users shoot a video, pick out a still frame from the video, share the image on Facebook or print it, and by holding up an iPad or iPhone to the image, the video plays back on the user’s device. Now, a business card could trigger a video, or printed holiday cards can come to life to family and friends around the world. The app is powered by the Aurasma engine, which is based on HP Autonomy IDOL technology.

Macy’s turned to HP Autonomy to help manage the growth of its digital properties, including Macys.com and Bloomingdales.com. HP Autonomy’s Web content management lets Macy’s provide customers with a consistent, engaging online experience that leads to store foot traffic. As Macy’s executes necessary content updates to its global Web presence, being able to deliver content to customers across a variety of touchpoints, including mobile, is crucial to the retailer’s strategy. HP Autonomy technology creates a digital access point enabling Macy’s customers to easily interact with the retailer.

All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan’s largest airline, turned to HP Autonomy’s digital marketing platform to help deliver an enhanced online experience for its customer base. With HP Autonomy’s Web content management and online testing solutions, ANA has taken the guesswork out of its marketing, leading to a dramatic increase in ticket purchase conversion rates, with ANA seeing a 30 percent increase in just one month. Now, ANA views HP Autonomy as a vital piece of the airline’s online strategy for digital marketing, enabling engagement and the delivery of relevant, targeted content.

Maricopa Integrated Health System (MIHS), a hospital in Maricopa County, Ariz., is inundated with massive amounts of data and faced with increasing regulatory and compliance obligations. MIHS processes nearly 20,000 inpatient admissions and 350,000 outpatient admissions each year. To streamline its data backup and disaster recovery process, MIHS uses HP Data Protector and HP StoreOnce, resulting in $400,000 in savings to date. Since MIHS shifted to Autonomy and HP’s data protection solutions, completing a full backup of a file system now takes only 10 hours, compared with 78 hours in the past.

The state of Oregon turned to HP Autonomy and partner Chaves Consulting to create a statewide electronic records management solution. The Oregon Records Management Solution (ORMS) implements HP TRIM in the cloud as part of a software as a service offering. HP TRIM enables the state to manage records as they are created, leading to cost savings associated with storage, risk and litigation. Before using HP TRIM, satisfying public record requests meant that employees had to rummage through backup tapes, emails and file servers—a task that could take days and now takes at most a few minutes. With HP TRIM, requests are processed exponentially faster, making access to government records easier, more transparent and more affordable.

HP Autonomy recently introduced its first partner program. The HP Autonomy Partner Program benefits customers who can now take advantage of the scale, resources and expertise of a broader ecosystem of business partners and trained experts. The HP Autonomy Partner Program maps to the structure of HP’s global partner program to deliver simple, consistent channels for engagement, and a more consistent approach with existing HP Autonomy Software programs, products and services.

HP Autonomy officials say the company operates the world’s largest private cloud, at 60 petabytes. Large organizations, including banks, pharmaceutical and health care institutions, trust the Autonomy cloud to archive, govern, analyze and act on their corporate data. Customers are also using Autonomy to gain greater understanding of this information to identify new markets, improve customer engagement and conversions, and increase overall revenue. HP Autonomy aims to help organizations increase their “return on information.”