HP Acquires Mercury Interactive for $4.5B (AMR)

Hewlett-Packard is acquiring Mercury Interactive—a top vendor of software quality, application management, and portfolio management products—for $52 a share, or approximately $4.5B in cash. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. HP expects that the addition of Mercury will be dilutive to earnings in fiscal 2007 but accretive in 2008.