Hewlett-Packard will buy management software company Mercury Interactive, HP just announced. The hardware maker is thus entering the software biz and snapping up a big player in quality assurance.

What's more, it's saving Mercury's shareholders. HP is offering $52 a share for Mercury, a generous offer for a stock that hovered in the high 30s on NASDAQ last year before being de-listed in the midst of a stock option scandal. (Mercury was one of the first companies investigated for stock options backdating, a practice that's now getting several bigger companies in trouble.)

What else does this mean?

Well, the deal will make HP a competitor of IBM's engineering software department, "IBM Rational."

Lastly, HP must want some of Mercury's products. Feel free to speculate which ones in the comments.

There's a press conference in two hours. What will be announced? HP's new strategy to compete with Google (and lose)? Layoffs? Quiet demotions for the execs involved in the options scandal?

HP to acquire Mercury Interactive [Mercury News, no relation]