HP Starts Bragging About Being World's 6th Largest Software FirmHP Starts Bragging About Being World's 6th Largest Software Firm

By combining its own software product development and software company acquisitions, Hewlett Packard has become the sixth largest software company in the world. But nobody really thinks of HP as a software company. The company, better known for its hardware and services, intends to change that. It wants to be considered in the same leage as software heavyweights like Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and Computer Associates.

HP says it will roll up the product line of its recent Mercury Interactive acquisition and its existing OpenView suite into a single product line and brand the combination HP Software.

HP made the announcement at a conference of its European users in Vienna Dec. 12. Last July it announced it had reached an agreement to acquire Mercury Interactive for $4.5 billion, after a reported bidding war with EMC Corp. It closed the deal Nov. 7.

Mercury supplies software that tests the function and performance of newly developed software. It also supplies software to monitor and test the performance characteristics of running applications.

"We will focus the integration of these two product lines around connecting IT strategy to applications and operations," said David Gee, VP marketing for the new HP Software business unit.

HP wants to combine Mercury's capabilities with those of its venerable OpenView network management and systems management products. The latter provides a view of whether networks and servers are running as intended. Mercury will add to that overview how well specific applications are performing in terms of meeting traffic demands and service level agreements.

"This will be the sixth largest software company in the world," with annual revenues of $2 billion, Gee added.