Letter to Dr Michael Lynch about glassdoor reviews

Dr Michael Lynch,

CEO, Autonomy Corporation,

Cambridge Business Park

Cowley Rd

Cambridge

CB4 0WZ

27th July 2009

Dear Dr Lynch.

You may recall I wrote to you in June, expressing my concerns about the way that Blinkx was being managed.

I was of course disappointed not to receive a response from yourself.

I am afraid I must write again, as my concerns have grown rather than diminished.

The Blinkx share price continues to decline. The complete lack of news and PR continues. Even while rivals make good progress (for example Arqiva’s purchase of the Kangaroo assets, with the intention of launching a VoD service, announced this past week) Blinkx continues to give every appearance of being completely moribund.

I would also draw your attention to the enclosed, a print-out of an article from glassdoor.com – a site which allows employees (and, of course, ex-employees) to rate the companies they work(ed) for.

Of course it could be a fake, and of course it could have been written by a disgruntled ex-employee: but I must say that the picture it paints of life within Blinkx – of a weak, insecure management, of over-promising and under-delivering, of a focus on delivering cool demos rather than working products – certainly chimes with my perception of Blinkx in the past year or so.

Nor is the enclosed an isolated instance: if you go to glassdoor.com, Dr Lych, and search for reviews of Blinkx, you will see that there are many similar reviews. I haven’t imposed on your time by enclosing those other reviews, but if you take some time from your busy day to read them – or task one of your employees with doing so – I think you will see common themes emerging: management incompetence, insecurity, inability to deliver, chaotic office life.

Again, this chimes with my own perception of Blinkx’s inability to deliver the deals, applications, products and services to drive the company forward to sustainable profitability.

Where, for example, are the apps to monetise Blinkx’s 35m+ hours of indexed video by getting that index in front of the tens of millions of eyeballs that will be required to monetise profitably? Where are the following products?

Blinkx iPhone app

Blinkx Android app

Blink Pre app

Blinks Facebook app

These are all complete no-brainers and should have been built and released a long time ago. So where are they? And where is Transaction Hijacking? Shareholders were told nearly a year ago that it was ready to launch – so where is it?

In conclusion, Dr Lynch, let me ask you this one simple question: are you happy with how your investment in Blinkx is being managed by Chandratillake and the rest of the Blinkx management team? Can you be completely sure that all of those reviews on glassdoor.com are either fakes or from embittered ex-employees – of is this, perhaps, a case of ‘no smoke without fire’? And do you not owe it to Autonomy shareholders – who also have a large stake in Blinkx – to investigate exactly how Blinkx is being managed?

Yours sincerely

xxxxx xxxxxx

[enc: print out of http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Blinkx-RVW255114.htm