July 25, 2006 5:04 PM PDT
HP to buy Mercury Interactive for $4.5 billion
Hewlett-Packard announced Tuesday that it will acquire management software company Mercury Interactive for $4.5 billion in cash, which values the company at $52 a share.
The idea appears to be to blend HP's OpenView systems and network management software for data centers with Mercury's products for managing application development. HP CEO Mark Hurd will hold a conference call early Tuesday afternoon to discuss the deal.
The deal, when completed, will increase the size of HP's software business to $2 billion in revenue a year, the companies said.
Check out this story for more complete coverage of the deal, including comments from HP executives and industry analysts.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
