Company History
12 Years of Getting it Right
Original Software is a privately owned company. It was formed in December 1996 and started trading in May 1997.
Strong foundations
The Company was founded by Mr. Colin Armitage and Mr. George Wilson - IT professionals who had run other software companies, each with over 15 years development and management experience in the IT industry at that time.
Where it began
The leading vendors have followed the money, which is only natural, but is not always in the interests of improving test automation.
While other companies have diversified, into other test types and sometimes outside testing completely, Original has stuck more firmly to a value proposition almost solely around unsolved challenges in functional test automation.
It has filled out some yawning gaps and attempted to make test automation more accessible to non-technical testers.
Ovum Report 2009
In the initial years, solution focus was based around the IBM iSeries platform, creating innovate solutions to real testing issues; such as how to create and re-use test data, extending testing coverage to simultaneously test the database in line with the user interface and creating automation of user interface testing without the need to use a scripting language.
How it took off
This combination proved highly successful, resulting in over 200 installations around the world, and led to the development of the same style of solutions on a whole host of other platforms and technologies. Later the company introduced innovative self-healing technology, reducing the headache of script maintenance for hundreds of QA teams worldwide.
In 2007 a manual testing solution was introduced, speeding the process by over 50% and importantly, when used in conjunction with other tools, it facilitates the transition to automation by simply transforming a manual test into a fully automated re-usable script.
Today
Original Software's innovative approach to solving real pain-points in the Application Development Life Cycle has been recognised by leading multinational customers and industry analysts alike.