The OVFI, which has more than 700 members in Australia and 8,000 worldwide, is currently in discussions about re-naming the group to accommodate HP's plans to introduce a unified HP software brand that includes products from IT systems management software and services vendor Mercury.

Under the new branding OpenView will be ditched to combine the suite with Mercury technologies. The overlap of Mercury and HP OpenView customers is fairly high due to enterprises adopting Mercury's performance and quality testing software.

OVFI global marketing manager Andrew Ford said the acquisition means an expanded role for the user group as Mercury customers come on board and utilize the group's resources.

The user group's board of directors will be meeting before year's end and Ford said renaming the forum could be on the agenda.

"Discussions are continuing but I cannot say when a decision is likely to be made," he added.