HP & Autonomy: When Acquisitions Attack!

With Hewlett-Packard recently announcing the writedown of its Autonomy acquisition just over a year after that deal closed (and after a separate impairment last quarter), it would seem that a recounting of some of the worst tech acquisitions in recent memory is in order. The following weren't plagued by allegations of fraud and cooked books like the Autonomy deal -- just plain poor decision making and simply overpaying were the culprits here.