Hewlett-Packard bolstered its management-software portfolio on Monday with announcements that it has signed agreements to acquire Peregrine Systems Inc. and AppIQ Inc.

HP will acquire Peregrine, a provider of IT asset- and service-management software, in a deal valued at $425 million. The software assets of Peregrine will be integrated into the HP OpenView business unit. In its most recently reported quarter, ended March 31, Peregrine reported a loss of $8.4 million on revenue of $47.7 million.

Peregrine's capabilities include asset tracking, expense controls, process automation, service control, service alignment, enterprise discovery, IT executive dashboard, as well as outsourcing, business continuity, and consolidation management. "Peregrine will help HP deliver a more complete management software solution to CIOs and enhance their ability to manage their IT assets," said Ann Livermore, executive VP of HP's Technology Solutions Group, in a statement.

The company intends to close the Peregrine acquisition no later than the first quarter of 2006.

HP also plans to acquire AppIQ, a provider of open storage area network management and storage-resource-management technologies, for an undisclosed sum. Livermore said by acquiring AppIQ HP will "give customers a single integrated console that controls and better exploits their storage and server infrastructure."

The acquisition of AppIQ is expected to close within 45 days