Autonomy to buy Virage

Autonomy Corp. plc, Cambridge, U.K., will acquire Virage Inc., San Mateo, Calif., in a $24.8 million cash deal. Autonomy is paying $1.10 a share for Virage stock.

Autonomy is acquiring the company to extend its own presence in selected markets, including government and education markets, according to Michael Lynch, CEO of Autonomy.

The boards of directors at both companies have approved the transaction, which is expected to close by the end of September. Virage will operate as a separate division, with its brand name remaining intact.

Autonomy sells software solutions that automate the indexing, retrieval and delivery of rich media files, such as word processing documents, Web pages, spreadsheets, e-mail, audio and video. Virage sold a number of rich media products, such as software that encodes and indexes video files, and solutions that manage rich asset libraries.

Autonomy reported $51 million in sales for 2002, with net income of $6.1 million, according to Hoover's Online of Austin, Texas.