Hewlett-Packard today announced updates to Service Test Management 10.5 and Functional Testing 10.0 --its quality assurance tools for software testers--that the company says are now better equipped to help development teams find defects earlier and cover code for Adobe Flex/Flash, Ajax, Microsoft Silverlight and other rich client technologies.

New in Functional Testing 10, which is part of Mercury's ever-popular Quick-Test Pro, is the ability to easily test dynamic Web 2.0 applications and features. The update is implemented in the so-called Web 2.0 Extensibility Accelerator, which the company says "provides a Visual Studio-like IDE that accelerates and facilitates the design, development and deployment of HP QuickTest Professional Add-in Extensibility support sets." These support sets "extend the HP Functional Testing Web Add-in so you can test Web controls that are not supported out-of-the-box." Current QTP users can download the update for free .

HP, which acquired the top-selling Mercury software testing tools along with Mercury Interactive in 2006, has the tools as part of its Application Lifecycle Management portfolio , which also includes tools for security, performance and SOA management.