There is, alas, no rule which says that press releases must be proportionate in length to the size of the story. Those of us who are sent them usually have to plough through yards of verbiage and work out for ourselves whether the host of superlatives actually means anything of significance.

That a really big story needs very few words is illustrated by one found today on the web site of the London Stock Exchange with the heading Autonomy enters into $25 million agreement for e-Discovery software.

The admirably terse central message reads

Autonomy…  today announced that it has received an order for its e-discovery and compliance solutions with an initial value of approximately $15 million and a total committed value of approximately $25 million over the next few years.

Commenting on the contract win, Andrew Kanter, Autonomy’s Chief Operating Officer said today: “I am pleased to announce this latest significant contract win at the more sophisticated end of e-discovery and compliance solutions, in this case coming outside the historically strong verticals of the financial services and pharmaceutical industries.”

Beyond the fact that the Stock Exchange page is headed “Regulatory Story”, there are no other clues as to the buyer or its purpose. Twitter buzzes with anticipation, but the story broke only 75 minutes ago, so we will have to wait and see. Stock Exchange market news has a narrower purpose than a full-blown press release, so we may get some details as the day goes on.

More when I know more.

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