Mercury Interactive Serves Up IT Assessment Tools

Dubbed Optane, the software bundles several existing Mercury Interactive applications with a new module called Topaz Business Availability, which gives CIOs and integrators a dashboard view of how IT performance affects business processes, said Mercury Interactive COO Ken Klein. "It gives them the intelligence to make the right decision based on the need to support the business," Klein said.

The ability to monitor infrastructure performance more closely will be important as companies prepare for a Web services world, noted Christopher Lochhead, CEO of Lochhead Corp., an enterprise management consulting firm specializing in business technology optimization.

"The CIO and CEO must be in synch," Lochhead said. "Those that move fast on this optimization theme will have an advantage."

Mercury Interactive's new dashboard is slated to ship in the first quarter of 2003, Klein said. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based software developer's existing tools include enterprise testing applications such as Test Director, LoadRunner, WinRunner and Quick Test as well as production tuning software such as ProTune and ActiveTune. The latter app is being used in about 3,000 engagements, Klein said.

The suite will be available under an ASP or licensed model, but Klein declined to specify pricing. "The investment can be in the low six figures for a return in the seven figures," he said.

Mercury Interactive plans to work closely with integrator Accenture to bring Optane to market, although it also is signing up other partners for the product. "Accenture brings to the table a deep understanding of industry verticals and processes," Klein said.

Some integrators already have developed their own technology to help businesses take stock of their IT infrastructure and assess its performance, but they don't offer the realtime management capability that Mercury Interactive's Optane will provide, according to Klein.

GE Capital IT Solutions, for one, is piloting a service that gathers infrastructure inventory information, analyzes the data and combines it with pertinent financing and leasing data, presenting the customer with various return-on-investment scenarios, said Rohit Gupta, director of product management at the Newport, Ky.-based integrator. Pricing for the offering, called GE Statistical Infrastructure Technology Evaluation (S.I.T.E), has not yet been determined, he said, adding that GE Capital IT Solutions has a patent pending on the technology.

"This formalizes some of our intellectual capital," Gupta said. "We need a differentiator."