Mercury Interactive
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Founded | 1989 |
| Founder | Zvi Schpizer, Ilan Kinriech, Arye Finegold |
| Fate | Acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006; assets later transferred to Hewlett Packard Enterprise and then Micro Focus; currently owned by OpenText |
| Headquarters | California , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Application management, delivery, change and configuration management, SOA governance, quality assurance, IT governance software |
Mercury Interactive Corporation was an Israeli-origin software firm that became part of the HP Software Division following its acquisition. The company focused on software solutions for application management, delivery, change and configuration management, service-oriented architecture (SOA), quality assurance, and IT governance.
History
Established in 1989 by Zvi Schpizer, Ilan Kinriech, and Arye Finegold, Mercury Interactive operated its headquarters in California while maintaining a significant research and development center in Yehud, Israel.
On 25 July 2006, Hewlett-Packard declared its intention to acquire Mercury Interactive in a transaction valued at $4.5 billion. By November 2006, Mercury had been fully integrated into HP, with its product lines incorporated into the HP Software Division’s IT Management Software offerings.
After HP underwent a corporate restructuring, the majority of Mercury’s software assets were transferred to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). In September 2017, HPE divested these assets to UK-based Micro Focus. Later in 2023, Canadian software company OpenText acquired Micro Focus, thereby obtaining ownership of Mercury Interactive’s products.
Acquisitions
Between 2000 and its acquisition by HP in 2006, Mercury Interactive expanded its portfolio through several strategic acquisitions:
- Conduct Software Technologies, Inc. was acquired via a stock exchange deal valued around $50 million. Founded in 1996 by Sharon Azulai, David Barzilai, and Ran Levy, Conduct specialized in visualizing network topologies to detect performance bottlenecks. Its flagship product, SiteRunner, employed multi-agent technology for network diagnostics. Following the acquisition, Conduct’s team developed Prism, a tool designed for monitoring web server traffic.
- Freshwater Software was the developer of SiteScope, a web server monitoring solution. Mercury acquired Freshwater in 2001; this product is currently marketed under the name HP SiteScope.
- Performant Inc. provided diagnostic tools for J2EE environments and was purchased by Mercury in 2003 for $22.5 million.
- Kintana Inc. focused on IT governance solutions and was acquired for $225 million in June 2003. Its offerings have since been incorporated into HP Project and Portfolio Management software.
- Appilog developed automated discovery and application mapping technologies to illustrate relationships between applications and infrastructure. Mercury purchased Appilog for $49 million in 2004; this technology is now part of HP Universal CMDB, which supports HP Business Service Management.
- BeatBox Technologies (previously ClickCadence LLC) offered real user behavior tracking solutions. Acquired in 2005 for about $14 million, BeatBox’s capabilities enhanced Mercury’s Real User Monitor (RUM), now integrated into HP Business Availability Center.
- Systinet (formerly IdooX) delivered registry and enablement software for SOA governance. Mercury acquired Systinet in 2006 for $105 million; these products are currently branded as HP SOA Systinet software.
Corporate malfeasance
From 4 January 2006 until its acquisition by Hewlett-Packard, Mercury Interactive was traded over the counter via the Pink Sheets after being removed from NASDAQ due to failure to comply with filing requirements. The delisting occurred after Mercury missed a second deadline to restate financial statements on 3 January 2006.
In November 2005, three senior executives resigned following a special committee’s investigation that revealed they had benefited from improperly backdated stock option grants. Between 1995 and 2005, there were 49 instances where the official grant date did not match the actual date, often resulting in options priced below market value. Former CFO Sharlene Abrams had resigned earlier in November 2001 amid allegations related to financial misreporting.
CEO Amnon Landan was found to have falsified personal stock option exercise dates on three occasions between 1998 and 2001 to inflate reported profits. Additionally, a $1 million loan extended to Landan in 1999—later repaid—was granted without prior Board approval and was vaguely disclosed in SEC filings. In 2007, the SEC filed civil fraud charges against Landan, other executives, and Abrams. Mercury Interactive resolved these charges by paying a $28 million civil penalty without admitting or denying wrongdoing.
In March 2009, the SEC reached a settlement with Abrams requiring her to pay over $2.2 million in disgorgement and penalties. By September 2009, all SEC charges against Susan Skaer (now Susan Skaer Tanner) were dismissed by a federal judge.
Products
- HP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) software: an all-encompassing suite for managing application lifecycles and testing processes
- HP LoadRunner software: a set of integrated tools designed for performance testing
- HP QuickTest Professional software: solution for automated software testing
- HP Quality Center software (previously known as TestDirector): platform for managing application quality
- HP SiteScope software: monitoring system that operates without agents
- HP Universal Configuration Management Database (CMDB) software
- HP Project and Portfolio Management: clientless software for scheduling and project oversight
- HP Business Process Testing: toolset supporting automated and manual test design, creation, upkeep, execution, and data handling
- HP Diagnostics software: suite of application diagnostic utilities
- HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping: automated tools for mapping applications and IT infrastructure dependencies
- HP Functional Testing: solution for automated functional and regression tests
- HP Real User Monitor: platform providing real-time monitoring of application performance and availability from the end-user viewpoint
- HP Performance Center: management system for application performance testing activities
- HP Business Availability Center: comprehensive business service management solutions
- HP Mobile Center: platform dedicated to mobile application testing
Competitors
- Quality Assurance
- IBM (following the Rational acquisition)
- Micro Focus (incorporating Borland and Segue Software acquisitions such as SilkTest and SilkPerformer)
- Parasoft
- Tricentis
- IT Governance / ITIL / ITSM
- BMC Software
- CA, Inc. (including Niku acquisition)
- Compuware (with ChangePoint acquisition)
- IBM (Tivoli Software division)
- Microsoft (System Center suite)
- Primavera Systems
- Quest Software
- Monitoring and Diagnostics
- BMC Software (after acquiring Coradiant)
- CA, Inc. (post Wily Technology acquisition)
- Compuware
- IBM
- Microsoft (System Center platform)