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.