Mercury: A Dominant player in the IT Project and Portfolio Management Market

Mercury Achieves Highest Growth Rate of Leading Vendors in ITPPM Market

January 2006

Mercury Interactive Corporation (OTC: MERQ), the global leader in business technology optimization (BTO) software, announced that it has been declared one of the "dominant players" in the IT Project and Portfolio Management (ITPPM) market in IDC’s report: Worldwide IT Project and Portfolio Management 2005-2009 Forecast and 2004 Vendor Shares. According to the IDC report and data, Mercury achieved the highest growth rate of the leading ITPPM vendors in 2004 and is ranked second only to Microsoft in total market share.

"Mercury raised the bar first for the concept of incorporating ITPPM as part of an integrated approach to application lifecycle management," said Melinda Ballou, program director at IDC and author of the report. "Mercury has highly leveraged its dominance in the testing arena and strength in related markets to invest in ITPPM. Overall, Mercury is extremely competitive in the ITPPM market and we expect it to continue as a dominant player."

According to the report, the combination of targeted ITPPM functionality and Mercury's ability to respond quickly and execute well in high growth markets early in their lifecycle was once again a recipe for success. The report cites key strengths for Mercury that include garnering the focus of business and IT decision makers, and an intuitive product that includes excellent workflow, demand management, and process management.

"In early October 2005, Mercury launched Mercury BTO Enterprise, the culmination of a significant product development focus to expand capabilities," continued Ballou. "This release also integrates its suite of tools for BTO and application management with its base suite of original products in testing and application performance management. This release strengthened product capabilities for ITG as well as other areas."

According to the report, the ITPPM market experienced growth of 16.7% to $402.9 million in 2004 due to the increasing role and complexity of IT in the enterprise and the need to better align IT with business needs and corporate governance and regulatory requirements.

"Customers are turning to Mercury to help address their biggest IT governance challenges – controlling IT cost and risk, meeting compliance requirements, aligning IT with the business, and optimizing the business outcomes of IT," said Jan Sondergaard, vice president, IT governance products at Mercury. "Mercury is one of the largest vendors in the IT governance market, and we are proud to be positioned as a dominant player for IT project and portfolio management."

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