The buyout will add a variety of potentially useful application and performance management products to the OpenView portfolio, several HP users said. Buying Mercury should also boost HP's ability to compete with IBM, BMC Software Inc. and CA Inc. in the management tools market, according to the HP users and some industry analysts.

Mercury's products will complement or even enhance the OpenView tools for ensuring system performance and availability and managing internal processes based on the IT Infrastructure Library specifications, said Karen Semonson, information systems operational services manager at Foremost Farms USA Cooperative in Baraboo, Wis.

For example, she wants to use Mercury's IT Governance Center and IT Availability Center tools to broaden the IT service management road map at Foremost Farms. Those products should add capabilities that HP's OpenView Service Desk and OpenView Operations tools don't provide now, said Semonson, who is co-leader of the Wisconsin User Group. Her group is a local chapter of OpenView Forum International, an independent organization with more than 6,000 members.

Joe Gersch, the OVFI's treasurer, said HP users had been discussing the prospect of a Mercury acquisition for months. "As I've talked to OV users, they say Mercury has a very good suite of products, and some actually said, 'I wish Mercury were a part of OV,'?" noted Gersch, who is vice president of engineering at Secure64 Software Corp. in Greenwood Village, Colo.

'Strong complement'