Archive for the ‘Original Software News’ Category
Customers Get Quality-Centric VIP Treatment
Original Software’s robust approach to software quality helps Vermont Information Processing reduce release bottlenecks and improve customer support forecasting
Vermont Information Processing (VIP), IT solutions supplier to the beverage wholesale industry, has utilized Original Software’s end-to-end testing solution to increase its software quality. Even with an intensely accelerated development schedule, VIP has improved its customer upgrade experience and reduced pressure on its support team. This in turn has enabled the business to respond effectively to the complex requirements of its customers during volatile market conditions.
A period of market consolidation had caused significant growing pains for VIP. As its customers’ operations increased in complexity, the software that they relied on to manage their business needed to be able to handle much more complicated processes. VIP’s old development cycle just didn’t fit this new development schedule. Putting out new releases became painful, not just for customers and its development team, but the support team was also beginning to feel the repercussions.
With the help of Original Software, VIP was able to develop a much more robust approach to software quality. The company has completely turned around its QA process and overcome its customers’ cautious attitudes to upgrades. VIP has now transformed into a software testing center of excellence with happy customers who are keen to upgrade to new releases.
Since implementation, VIP’s QA department has increased the scope of test coverage, taking control its test environments, comprehensively unit testing and running full regression tests on all system updates. Previously customers went on average three years before updating systems, creating a bottleneck in the upgrade process, now 97% are running a recent version of the software. The team has also vastly reduced the strain on support. Fixing a single bug could save support around 80 hours; it takes a lot less time to run the regression suite now, which on average turns up 10-12 similar bugs. This equates to five and a half months of support time per release!
VIP moved from having one major update release every three years to producing major releases once a year, with numerous maintenance builds in-between. The old eight month-long beta testing phase was too time consuming for the business with its new rapid development schedule and it could no longer afford to do this. With the crunching development cycle, quality was becoming an issue for VIP. “Our customers were really frustrated with us,” explained Bobby Erwin, Quality Control Analyst at VIP. “To get a new feature, they’d also get all these other problems to boot. This would become a strain on the support team too, as they’d spend hours on the phone going through problems.”
“Our main business drivers were to reduce the level of risk by increasing the scope of test coverage. Original Software was the ideal choice” said Erwin.
VIP purchased the solutions from Original Software in May 2007 and once they’d had the initial training it took two or three months to develop their first regression capabilities. They’ve been developing and building on these tests ever since. “Prior to this we conducted no regression testing at all – just a month or so of acceptance testing by customer service and then the beta tests. Now we have a battery of tests we perform every time we release,” imparted Erwin.
“We are providing a much more robust and better product to the end users,” said Bobby Erwin. “Our support and customer service teams are delighted. Our builds are just so much better now, and we can also tell them exactly how risky a release is, and predict the levels of support that might be needed.”
“The regression tests help us manage our exposure: improving experience for the customer, decreasing support needs for a given update. Testing gives us a feel for how stable the build is. It’s a known entity. If the build looks good in testing, we can install with greater confidence. If we find problems, we get a better idea of the support resources needed,” confirmed Chris Boucher, Support Manager at VIP.
To read the full customer case study, please visit: http://www.origsoft.com/customer-stories/vip
Blasting away market frustrations
Today we are officially launching Qualify to the world. Our brand new Quality Management solution aids business agility and unifies the software delivery process.
A recent independent report highlighted a huge amount of discontent in the market, with 84% of those surveyed stating that current products did not meet their functional requirements. Built with the purpose of directly answering these needs, Qualify unites all aspects of the software development lifecycle from requirements through to release. It is also fully integrated with Original Software’s manual and automated test execution solutions for the user interface and database layers.
Qualify encompasses requirements, planning, scheduling, resource management, test execution, defect management and reporting in one platform, ensuring collaboration and communication throughout. The methodology agnostic, entirely code free Quality Management solution, even comes complete with a smart phone interface, allowing instant access to cross-project information from just about anywhere.
Businesses now have a much better option than Quality Center from HP. One that really answers today’s business needs. Colin our CEO had this to say about the launch - “With more complexity in IT projects and a need to respond faster to changing markets, development teams have had to adapt the way they work, requiring processes and technology to support the dynamic nature of their businesses. The absence of a holistic solution for ensuring quality when managing the Software Development Life Cycle has been a bone of contention with the customers we speak with.”
We really think it’s quite brilliant and hope you do to. Check out our brand new Qualify page http://www.origsoft.com/qualify, where you will find links to some great resources including datasheets, a comparison document, analyst reports on Qualify and a new whitepaper with a great Star Wars theme entitled ‘What Yoda can teach us about Quality Management’
Having a Holistic View of Your Application Quality
Our last webinar in our software quality webinar series is finally here! http://www.origsoft.com/webinars/
We hope you have had the opportunity to enjoy our series and would like to invite you to join us one more time for our final educational webinar topic: “Having a Holistic View of Your Application Quality”.
Your applications are no doubt essential for running the business, and as such you need to ensure that you manage their quality throughout the software development lifecycle. Join us on this webinar as George Wilson, COO of Original Software, explores the importance of having a unified view of the application quality function.
If you haven’t already registered, make sure you register today to learn how you can improve your business agility throughout the application lifecycle: http://www.origsoft.com/webinars/
Agile Test Automation, Can It Be Done?
Join us on our next upcomming webinar, “Agile Test Automation, Can It Be Done?”
http://www.origsoft.com/webinars
George Wilson, Original Software, will be hosting the webinar this Wednesday, May 12th 2010, discussing the reality of test automation in an Agile environment.
Agile is a methodology that requires a change in the way QA and development work together. The use of technology and automation are much more difficult and finding a practical approach to testing is critical for successful Agile projects. This webinar will explore how testing in Agile is different and George will give pragmatic advice to ensure application quality.
Listen in and learn how:
* To overcome the barriers to Agile automation.
* You can progress into automation gradually and easily even in an Agile environment.
* Your application quality can be managed with complete visibility.
If you haven’t already registered, make sure you register today at: http://www.origsoft.com/webinars
Join our Software Test Automation Webinar Series
Original Software will be holding a number of webinars from April to June. No more than an hour in length, these informative sessions will attempt to cut through some of the myths and hype that currently surround the software testing industry.
Register today at: http://www.origsoft.com/webinars/
Listen in and learn how:
* You can jumpstart your test automation strategy without the need for complex scripting.
* You can automate agile testing quickly and easily.
* Your entire testing process can be underpinned by good quality, legal test data.
* Your application quality can be managed with complete visibility.
John Miner, Tim Bower and George Wilson, plus a few special guests will be your presenters on these great educational tracks. I am sure that these sessions will help you think about how effectively you can manage, secure and improve your software quality throughout the software testing lifecycle.
If you would like to register and attend our webinar simply visit the url below.
http://www.origsoft.com/webinars/
Thank you
QualityMatters.tv – Software Quality Videos
Just a quick note for anyone who has not visited us before, welcome to our new corporate website!
Not only does the new website have better design and functionality, we have also added a new area called QualityMatters.tv. A collection of educational videos and content all about software testing and quality assurance. You can view our Software Quality Matters blog feeds and our twitters feeds, all from QualityMatters.tv, and we hope to grow this area with more great videos. It would be great to add a message board so you can tell us what you think?
If you have any video content you feel would add value to QualityMatters.tv please Get In Touch.
I hope you enjoy our new website and if you have any feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact us. I would love to hear from you?
Don’t forget to visit http://www.qualitymatters.tv
All the best,
Maria Martin
Marketing Communications
NEWS: AppLabs and Original Software Partner to Help Clients Take the Step from Manual to Automated Testing
AppLabs sees huge value proposition for its clients with agile-friendly automation suite
11 August 2009 – Original Software today announced a strategic partnership with AppLabs, the world’s largest software testing and quality management company. AppLabs has entered into an agreement with Original Software to take to market its innovative quality management suite. The agreement will likewise allow Original Software to position AppLabs’ services into its own customer base.
Scott Andress, Vice President, Global Alliances and Service Lines at AppLabs commented: “As a tool agnostic services company, we focus on putting the right solution into the right project. We’ve spotted a compelling value proposition for our clients with Original Software’s suite, which can be a great fit for most agile developments, can speed up time-to-market and can provide a silver bullet for those clients struggling to make the transition from manual to automated testing.”
The industry analysts agree. A recent Ovum report stated: ‘TestDrive-Assist provides you with a rich environment for manual testing, but the bigger payback is how it facilitates adoption of full automation. Uniquely for any of the guided manual test execution products that we know of, Original can automatically convert a manual TestDrive-Assist test into a fully automated TestDrive test that can be repeated.” “Overall this is a low risk, low cost way of progressively adopting test automation.” “It fits in with classic waterfall processes, and it can also be used in agile processes more easily than other functional test automation suites.”
“TestDrive-Assist cuts the time it takes to manually test in half, with some customers having recorded savings of 75-80 percent” said Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software. He continued: “This partnership not only provides us with a strong route to market, but allows us to add services to our expanding portfolio. AppLabs’ expertise in testing services and its global, skilled resource pool will be a valued addition to our offering, giving customers the option to outsource projects or business functions or take advantage of specialized consultancy to optimize their IT and business quality management and testing capabilities.”
NEWS: Original Software Positioned as a Visionary in Magic Quadrant for Integrated Software Quality Suites
Original Software, the Application Quality Management (AQM) vendor, today announced that it has been placed in the ‘visionaries’ quadrant by leading analyst firm Gartner, Inc. in its recently published Magic Quadrant for Integrated Software Quality Suites, 31 July 2009.
“The total market for test management and functional and load/stress automation is currently valued at just under $1.2 billion, and is growing at more than 8% per year.” said Thomas Murphy in the report1. “Testing software can be an expensive process, but poor software quality leads to user dissatisfaction, as well as increased development and maintenance. Therefore, having a well-defined set of tools and practices to drive software quality will positively affect the overall business bottom line.”
The report evaluates fourteen vendors of software quality solutions based on a rigorous set of criteria that comprise ‘completeness of vision’ and ‘ability to execute’. Original Software has been positioned as a visionary.
Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software, said: “We consider our positioning in the visionaries quadrant to be confirmation of the real value that our approach to solving challenges in the quality process has brought to our users, extending the reach of these solutions within an organization and providing an early return on investment. We are now expanding on the unique work we have done, in reducing script maintenance, supporting manual testing, code-free automation and test data management, with the launch of a radical new ALM solution later this year.”
This report has recently been published by Gartner. More information can be found on the analyst page of Original Software’s website.
NEWS: Original Software offers ‘Escape’ for apprehensive Borland and Compuware customers
Original Software, the Application Quality Management (AQM) vendor, today announced a swap-out promotion for customers of the soon to be engulfed companies, who face uncertainty in the future of their legacy product roadmaps.
Original Software offers market-leading AQM solutions that span the application development life-cycle from requirements, planning and management to complete automated regression testing, including unique solutions for and test data management.
“Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software, said: “Any customer on a current maintenance contract with Borland or Compuware can qualify for the Escape program and swap to one of our comparable solutions, provided they switch the maintenance agreement.” The promotion, which runs until the end of the year, includes preferential pricing on all the company’s other complimentary solutions.
“While MicroFocus has now completed the acquisitions of Borland and Compuware, the future for their customers is far from clear. It is inevitable that one of the solutions will take precedence, leaving the other customer base facing an unpleasant choice. You have to feel special sympathy for the users of the Borland testing products for who this is the second change of ownership in less than three years.”
“The great thing about the Escape program is that companies can remove the uncertainty about products futures and join a company whose vision has been widely recognized by industry analysts like Gartner and Ovum. At the same time they can benefit from great customer service and a modern AQM solution suite that addresses traditional automation and the now widely recognized needs for collaboration, manual test support and test data management”.
A Day of Filming at Original Software
Film crew setting up
Today Peter Hopely, our Head of UK Sales, and Scott Addington, Head of Marketing swapped laptops for the lights, camera, action of a film studio today as they both recorded a series of ‘video whitepaper’ snapshots that will appear very soon on the Original Software website.
‘I am very excited about these videos’ commented Scott, ‘the video medium is an ideal vehicle for us to communication our core messages and value propositions, and we have used these short videos as introductions to whitepapers and specific parts of our website, I am sure they will be very well recieved.’
We used a company called ModComms to do the filming and post editing – a very proffesional bunch of lads. ‘The day has been tiring but definitley worthwhile’ said Peter.
Keep an eye on YouTube and the Original Software website over the next week or so as we work on the editing and get these short video’s live!!
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