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Mercury snags Kintana for $225M

Mercury Interactive Corp. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Kintana Inc. for about $225 million in stock and cash.

Originally named Chain Link Technologies, Kintana produces software suites that integrate IT business processes, providing managers with views of strategic projects and the ongoing activities of IT. The original goal of the company, which was founded by Nick Fergis, now VP of strategy, and Raj Jain, now president and CTO, was to bring the methods of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to IT systems management.

The move to buy Kintana is intended to further Mercury's move into business application performance monitoring and related fields. Privately held Kintana's revenue for 2002 was said to be about $44.5 million.

"By adding Kintana's capabilities to ours, customers will have software that allows them to run IT as a business, while optimizing the business of IT," said Amnon Landan, Mercury Interactive’s chairman, CEO and president, in a statement. Mercury has a full war chest and seems prepared to make selective buys. Last month, Mercury picked up Performant, a maker of J2EE app performance management software.