(San Diego CA. November 4, 2003) – The Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA), the leading industry association for IT support professionals, announced today that Mercury Interactive, (NASDAQ: MERQ), the global leader in business technology optimization (BTO), was recognized for its customer service excellence with an SSPA STAR Award at the recently held SSPA Conference@Savannah. Chosen as the best in what it does, Mercury Interactive was honored for delivering exemplary technical support to its customers and presented with a 2003 STAR Award in the Sustained Performance category.

The winner in this category demonstrates an ongoing level of outstanding overall software support, with high levels of customer satisfaction for at least three consecutive years. To compete, a company must be able to present three years of data, demonstrating sustained performance and how it attributed to high levels of ongoing customer satisfaction.

“The SSPA STAR Award winners provide a showcase of the top talent within our industry; and serves as the highest form of recognition they can receive in the service and support industry.” said Bill Rose, SSPA Founder/CEO. “As this year’s winner in the Sustained Performance category, Mercury Interactive has proven that they are an exceptional company that delivers world-class services.”

“We are proud to be recognized for the third year in a row by the SSPA, the support industry's most trusted advisor,” said Patrick Saeger, vice president of customer support at Mercury. “This award validates Mercury's ongoing effort to provide consistently excellent service, helping ensure the success of our customers and partners with their business technology optimization initiatives.”

All SSPA Member companies are eligible to nominate themselves in any number of the categories -- Sustained Performance; High Call Volume; Most Improved; Complex Support Applications; Outsource Support Provider; Innovative Support; Mission Critical Support: Small/Emerging Company and Support Technology Vendor. SSPA provides each Applicant with an electronic application as a benchmark/guideline. The STAR Award Applicants take this task very seriously and spend a considerable amount of time on this arduous, but rewarding process. Many non-winners have said that, even though they did not win an Award, the whole process was well worth the time and effort. They indicate they learned a lot from the process and were able to discover in what areas they can use improvement. For more information on the SSPA STAR Awards please visit www.thesspa.com or send an email to info@thesspa.com.

About Mercury Interactive Corporation
Mercury Interactive (NASDAQ: MERQ), the global leader in business technology optimization (BTO), is committed to helping customers optimize the business value of information technology. Founded in 1989, Mercury Interactive conducts business worldwide and is one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies today. Mercury Interactive provides software and services to govern the priorities, people, and practices of IT; deliver and manage applications; and integrate IT strategy and execution.

Customers worldwide rely on Mercury Interactive offerings to improve quality and performance of applications and manage IT costs, risks and compliance. Mercury Interactive BTO offerings are complemented by technologies and services from global business partners. For more information, visit www.mercuryinteractive.com.

About SSPA
Founded in 1989, the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) was formed to focus on the specific needs of service executives who are responsible for support centers and overall customer relations. Today, the SSPA represents over 21,600 service professionals at 2,500 support centers worldwide. These executives look to SSPA to provide insight into the future of support services, a road map of best practices within our industry and access to the best service and support vendors. SSPA has become the center of support providing a reliable and comprehensive resource for news, research, benchmarking, standards and collaboration.

SSPA was created for professionals, managers and executives that make their living in the IT support services community. It is not a generic, one-size-fits all website where nobody ever feels like they belong. SSPA is dynamic, interactive, living resource specifically designed for the unique needs of support professionals. This exciting virtual community creates a forum for constant interaction with peers, industry experts, technology vendors and much more. For more information regarding the SSPA and other related divisions, log on to www.thesspa.com or send an email to info@thesspa.com.