HP: Huh? Pardon?

I just listened to most of the HP's latest conference call, and I'm afraid I'm no wiser for the effort. They threw around the word "strategic" but didn't explain why they're paying what many consider a high price (an 80% premium!) for a software company called Autonomy. It sounded like they were reading from a script instead of trying to clearly get their points across.

I just read a book called Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Remult. Having read a number of books on strategy, philosophy, business advice, and so on, I find it better than average. (Like the author, I have an engineering degree, so maybe the way he thinks about things makes more sense to me.) For instance, Remult distinguishes between goal setting and strategy, and describes what he calls the kernel of strategy: diagnosing the problem, setting a guiding policy, and performing coherent actions. (Not earth-shattering stuff, but how many people and companies actually do this?) If HP diagnosed their problems during the call, I didn't hear it through their business jargon.

I don't understand what they're doing or why, and so I'll be looking for a different investment.