Mercury Interactive: Aiming at Bigger Picture

For years Mercury Interactive has been pigeonholed as a provider of testing and measurement software, winning an estimated 50% of the market.

Now, the company wants to expand beyond that category and move to offer tools to help companies improve the overall operation of their technology infrastructure. On Oct. 3, Mercury launched its Business Technology Optimization (BTO) initiative built around a suite of products it calls Optane. It draws upon the management philosophy and techniques of W. Edwards Deming. His teachings about how to improve quality in manufacturing were the foundation of Japan's industrial rehabilitation after World War II, and can best be summed up by the directive, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it."

Mercury customers appreciate the grander goal of fine-tuning technology infrastructure, but that's not why many buy Mercury products. For now, many customers turn to Mercury to solve a specific problem—be it in testing, measurement, or monitoring servers.

"They may be ahead of some of their customers, but they're headed in the right direction," says Bill Banze, senior manager of enterprise performance management for Infinis, a Columbus, Ohio-based consulting firm. He has installed Mercury products for clients such as Nationwide Insurance.

Avoiding surprises is the goal at National City, a regional bank headquartered in Cleveland. It's been using Mercury's LoadRunner product for about six years to stress-test its online banking and other applications. "We want to find the bottlenecks before our customers do," says Christopher Ulicky, manager of testing services.

Even as it broadens its customer base, Mercury must continue to satisfy customers with very specific needs like Vital Images, a company that provides systems that let radiologists see 3-D views of a patient's anatomy.

"Business optimization isn't my need," says Mike Swanson, director of software verification and testing. "My need is testing my applications, plain and simple."

He credits Mercury's testing application with reducing the number of people needed to test an application from five down to one.

Reference Checks Executives listed here are all Mercury Interactive customers. Their willingness to talk has been confirmed by Baseline.

CATALINA MARKETING Richard Wagner Manager, Automated Testing (727) 579-5000 Project: Uses Mercury's TestDirector and WinRunner to monitor and test performance of marketing applications it runs for some 16,000 store clients. INFINIS Bill Banze Senior Manager, Enterprise Performance Management (614) 436-9382 Project: Deploys products from Mercury and its competitors to test and monitor systems performance. NATIONAL CITY Christopher Ulicky Manager, Testing Services (216) 257-5090 Project: Has been using LoadRunner for about six years to stress-test applications before bringing then online. Used on online banking and enterprise applications such as PeopleSoft. STANDARD & POOR'S Brian Whitehead VP, Chief Technology Architect (212) 438-1000 Project: Has been using Mercury products for about six years to test and monitor what happens when visitors use the Web site. VITAL IMAGES Michael Swanson Director, Software Verification and Testing (763) 852-4100 Project: Uses Mercury's WinRunner to automate its software testing procedures. The Minneapolis company provides software for physicians to obtain 3-D views of a patient's anatomy. LILLIAN VERNON David Hochberg Vice President (914) 925-1200 Project: Mail order retailer has been using Mercury products since 2001 to stress-test Web site and monitor systems performance. Company Profile

Mercury Interactive 1325 Borregas Ave. Sunnyvale, CA 94089 (408) 822-5200 http://www.mercuryinteractive.com Ticker: MERQ Exchange: NASDAQ Employees: 1,597 Amnon Landan Chairman, President, CEO Spent most of his career with Mercury, joining the company in 1989. Served in a variety of technical positions, including VP of research and development. Holds degree in computer science from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Kenneth Klein Chief Operating Officer Responsible for worldwide operations, including sales, customer support, professional services. Joined company in 1992. Doug Smith Executive VP, CFO Joined company in May 2000. Has served as CFO since November 2001. Products Products available in three categories: enterprise testing (TestDirector, WinRunner, LoadRunner, Astra QuickTest and LoadTest), production tuning (ActiveTune, ProTune) and application performance management (Topaz, ActiveWatch). Latest push is the Optane Business Technology Optimization suite, which integrates products from all three areas.

Copyright © 2002 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Baseline.