Mercury Interactive

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For another company with a similar name, see Mercury Computer Systems.

HP Mercury (formerly Mercury Interactive) is a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard that is a market leader[citation needed] in automated software quality assurance and offers products in other areas such as diagnostics, monitoring, and IT governance. Mercury was founded in 1989 and is based in Mountain View, California. Its largest R&D facility is in Yehud, Israel, and has many offices around the world. On July 25, 2006 Hewlett-Packard announced that it would pay $4.5 billion to acquire Mercury, offering to pay $52 a share, which was a 33 percent premium over its close of $39 a share on the day of the announcement. Mercury became part of HP as of November 7th, 2006.

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[edit] Acquisitions

Conduct Ltd was a privately-held software vendor of visualizes topology, pinpoints bottlenecks, and isolates the location of network problems both across the infrastructure. The main product was SiteRunner, which later transformed and became Prism and used for monitoring web server traffic. Today the product is called RUM (Real User Monitor) and is part of the Business Availability Center (BAC). On February 2000 acquired by Mercury Interactive.

Kintana was an independent software vendor of IT Governance products. On June 2003 was acquired by Mercury Interactive for $225M. Today Kintana's products are sold under the PPM Project Portfolio Management.

Appilog was an independent software vendor of IT application discovery and mapping. Appilog's products mapped the relationships among applications and their underlying infrastructure. On May 2004 was acquired by Mercury Interactive for $49M. Today Appilog products' are sold under the uCMDB (Universal CMDB part of HPSW's BSM products.

Systinet (formerly named IdooX) was an independent software vendor of registry and enablement products for standard service-oriented architecture (SOA). On February 1, 2006, Systinet was acquired by Mercury Interactive.

[edit] Corporate malfeasance

From 4 January 2006, until its purchase by Hewlett-Packard, Mercury was traded via Pink Sheets as a result of being delisted from the NASDAQ due to noncompliance with filing requirements[1]. This situation occurred as a result of Mercury having to restate financial results due to improprieties by executive management regarding stock options backdating. The executive officers who precipitated the delisting, Chief Executive Officer Amnon Landan, Chief Financial Officer Douglas Smith, and General Counsel Susan Skaer, resigned on November 2, 2005 when it became known that these officers were aware of, and participated in, the manipulation of stock options purchase dates on 49 occasions between 1995 and 2004. In addition to these manipulations, the Chief Executive Officer, Amnon Landan, misreported personal stock option exercise dates to increase his profit on transactions three times between 1998 and 2001. Other improprieties on Amnon Landan's part include a 1 million dollar personal loan in 1999, which was not authorized by the board of directors, and was not clearly disclosed in the company's filings with the SEC. The SEC initiated legal proceedings against Landan and Skaer in 2007. The company is under new management.

Mercury's former GC, Susan Skaer, changed her last name to Tanner after marrying in the summer of 2006 and no longer practices law; she now sells residential real estate in Palo Alto.[1]

[edit] Products

  • WinRunner is a functional GUI testing tool.
  • QuickTest Professional (QTP) is a functional GUI testing tool.
  • LoadRunner is a load testing tool.
  • Performance Center is an enterprise-class application for performance testing manageable via the web.
  • TestDirector for Quality Center is a management tool for all aspects of software testing, ranging from capturing requirements, storing test scripts, test execution and defect management.
  • Business Technology Optimization is a new tool built to aid the business philosophy of managing IT resources as a business rather than as a service bureau.
  • Business Availability Center is an end-user experience monitoring tool.
  • SiteScope is an Agent-less Systems Monitoring tool.
  • Mercury Application Mapping is a systems' mapping tool.
  • Mercury IT Governance (ITG) is an IT Governance and Project Portfolio Management (PPM)tool.
  • Mercury Global Monitor (formerly Topaz Monitor)[2]

[edit] Competitors

Quality Assurance

IT Governance / ITIL / ITSM

Monitoring and Diagnostics

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^  TheStreet.Com. Retrieved on January 3, 2006.
  1. ^ Zusha Elinson, "GCs Get Optioned Out Over Backdating," The Recorder, 18 April 2008, published online through Law.com. Retrieved on 18 April 2008.