The accounting sleuths have, says HP, uncovered evidence that Autonomy bloated its sales, for instance by inflating revenue from software packaged with other firms' hardware.
The first is that Microsoft has a vast range of partnerships with other software firms, hardware makers, and telecoms and media companies.
Mr Forstall reportedly clashed with other executives at Apple, notably Jonathan Ive, the firm's hardware design chief.
In particular, the legendary mainframe business was perceived to be in terminal decline, while the firm's hardware (personal computers and the like) were rapidly becoming commodities.
Previous layoffs targeted the firm's hardware unit.
But the firm's hardware partner, Xi3, suggests there's a reason gamers will not be dissuaded.
Her appointment in April as chief executive of HCL, the holding company that has stakes in Nadar's two listed flagships, HCL Technologies (India's fourth-largest software firm), and hardware outfit HCL Infosystems, was made public in July.
With backing from Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, as well as SOSVentures, the firm behind hardware accelerator HAXLR8R, the incubator sought out startups doing interesting things with the next-generation gesture control platform.
Furthermore, for providers like Dell and HP, spreading vertically into other parts of the IT business also offers the best hope for growth in a market that is, overall, maturing.This has created a free-for-all, with software firms swallowing up hardware firms and vice versa.
Since the economic liberalisation of the 1990s, major international firms such as Infosys, Intel and Microsoft have opened bases there along with nearly 3,000 software firms, 35 hardware manufacturers and hundreds of other small scale businesses – turning this once lush farmland into India's Silicon Valley.
