November 7th, 2006: Mercury announced that HP has completed its acquisition of Mercury Interactive Corporation.

The deal, which is the largest software acquisition in HP's history, integrates Mercury’s application capabilities with HP’s broad portfolio of management solutions to create a new software organisation – HP Software - that will lead the industry in Business Technology Optimisation, or BTO.

BTO enhances the value of business outcomes of IT investments through targeted delivery of software and services. Comprising the industry’s most comprehensive suite of IT management software, the new HP BTO portfolio will enable clients to:

Thomas E.Hogan, Senior Vice President (Software), HP, commented:

“IT today is all about business. The CIO’s mission is focused on driving value and competitive advantage. Operationally, it’s about running IT with the same disciplines and rigors with which you run a business.”

Stephen Davis, Managing Director of StarBase, adds:

“At StarBase, we have always measured success in terms of delivering against our clients’ commercial priorities. With HP’s acquisition of Mercury, for the first time CIOs will have available to them world class solutions from one supplier to manage and automate their IT strategy, application delivery and operations. As a longstanding Mercury partner, we look forward to working with HP Software and offering the enhanced range of solutions to our clients.”