HP Makes Its Move
HP certainly made a splash with its announced acquisition of Mercury last week -- it will be very interesting to see if HP can successfully integrate Mercury without taking away Mercury's unique characteristics that helped to make it successful. As Gartner states, "this deal marks the merger of a solid brand (HP) with an aggressive marketer (Mercury)." Mercury's earlier acquisition of Systinet was clearly an example of two well-aligned organizations on the marketing front; will this marketing-savvy organization survive absorption into the HP universe?
On the technology side, I expect that this acquisition will increase Mercury's product focus on IT management given the stated intent to prioritize integration with OpenView. While this certainly makes sense, it also seems likely that this increased runtime focus will reduce the ability to execute in the design-time world. Time will tell...