One of the easiest ways to have a better next year is to royally mess up this year. With that in mind, few screwups in 2012 rate worse than Hewlett-Packard's Autonomy acquisition fiasco. Earlier this year, Hewlett-Packard wrote down a whopping $8.8 billion of the $11 billion price tag it paid for the acquisition just last year. That $8.8 billion shows up as a charge against its fourth-quarter earnings for fiscal year 2012. Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE : HPQ) alleges that the writedown was driven by improperly recognized revenue prior to the acquisition — essentially, accounting fraud on Autonomy's part. While many wonder whether the magnitude of the alleged fraud was big enough to justify that large a writedown, the one thing that's clear is that it sets an incredibly low bar for the company to clear in 2013.