Archive for 2010

Psion Powers-On its Innovation with Qualify

Original Software’s new AQM solution provides a Quality Management backbone for Psion Teklogix, enabling better management and visibility of the engineering lifecycle

7 September 2010 – Psion Teklogix, the pioneer of rugged mobile computing, has utilised Original Software’s newly launched Application Quality Management (AQM) solution, Qualify, to enable significant time savings, process improvements and re-use of assets; accelerating innovation on ground-breaking new products and features.

Psion has enjoyed huge success with a test planning solution, from Original Software, over the last few years. When the company was introduced to a new AQM solution called Qualify, they immediately saw the potential to realise benefits on a much larger scale.

Persuading a happy customer to embrace change
Shahe Altounian, Manager for Product Support and Services at Psion, leads a team of Test and Business Analysts, in charge of validating Psion’s products before they are released to production. From testing for compliance to certain industry standards, through to validating that the beepers and software work as designed, he and his team were managing and planning the quality of their rugged handheld devices, using TestPlan, Original Software’s solution for test planning only, which has now been superseded by Qualify a complete AQM solution.

Shahe admits, “When I was first introduced to Qualify, my initial reaction was ‘Do I really need this right now?’, but I was soon won over, as we began seeing efficiencies by linking test requirements to product requirements and being able to customise the user interface to fit our individual needs. Qualify allows really simple efficiencies, such as being able to assign tasks en-mass, as well as ease of test asset re-use from project to project.”

Efficiencies aid innovation
Already Shahe’s team had experienced significant efficiency savings by eliminating the need for time-consuming weekly progress meetings. With Qualify, every member of the team can see the exact project status at any given moment of time, so the status updates are now effectively automated. This allows team members to get far more value out of the weekly meetings. Rather than focusing on what has already been done and what is outstanding, Psion can now devote that time to focus on more productive activities.

“The support team were fantastic in helping us to recognise the applicability and relevance of new features and integrate them into our processes, redefining entities, structures and relationships. We really began to see the benefit that could be realised in expanding Qualify out further across the enterprise and using the solution to join up our whole engineering process from requirements through to test validation,” claims Shahe.

The impetus to upgrade was to introduce these efficiencies to the rest of the organisation and benefit from the ability to trace requirements through the delivery process. “We wanted a more rigorous methodology to take us from requirements all the way through the product lifecycle,” he explains.

The Requirements team had vast amounts of spreadsheets they were using. They wanted to reduce the amount of time they spent maintaining these and at the same time take advantage of the re-usability of assets that Shahe and his team were enjoying with Qualify.

“We thought, wouldn’t it be great to have the processes all nailed down at the start of a new project – components we’ve built many times before – that wouldn’t have to be re-visited again and again? Using Qualify allows us to focus more on innovation – creating requirements for new ground-breaking features that will differentiate us from the competition and bring-to-market products with innovative new functionality; products that can make a real difference to our users and their employees,” says Shahe.

A rugged solution without all the hand-holding
Psion’s development process works like a classic ‘V Model’ and Qualify allows the integration of development with the testing team; visibly linking together both sides of the ‘V’ and allowing both teams full transparency of the project status.

Another feature that impressed Psion is the level of customisation that is possible. Each member of the team is able to have their own personalised view of the project and the elements and detail that they want to see, whatever is most important to them and their role.

What’s really great is how easy it is to achieve this. Qualify is totally customisable without IT support,” says Shahe. “All the other tools I have looked at require IT development and DBA support to achieve the same results. With Qualify, Original Software has handed power to their users, putting the customisation ability into the hands of the people actually using the solution!”

A more efficient and aligned business
“We now have our specifications in a solution where it is easy to slice and dice the information in different ways,” says Shahe. “We’ve created efficiency savings by eliminating duplication, but more than that, Qualify has given us a new clarity of purpose. We know exactly what we are trying to achieve and precisely where all the information we need is located.”

“Qualify has given us much more robust management of information and the ability to store and retrieve. We now have instant access to all the information we need at our fingertips. We have full historical data, such as the effort it took us to carry out certain tests, which then allows us to be much more accurate in our estimations at the start of a new project. Not only that, but this same historical data can really help us to improve performance and take corrective action when processes are not working effectively. For example, if we heard a complaint in the field, we can look back and find out what went wrong, how, if more training is needed, what tools were available, etc., and try to improve, rethinking the strategy to better perform in the future and improve processes. It’s a great audit trail, not just for compliance purposes, but for the business to improve its working practices as well.”

“The biggest challenge for us has been about changing how people work. We’ve made a monumental leap in the way that people collaborate and work together on projects. We’ve gone from doing everything manually, with work spread out across documents, print-outs and spreadsheets, to having a centralised, business-aligned quality management solution that truly empowers team members. I’ve really enjoyed working with Qualify and it has been an enormous benefit to the business,” concludes Shahe.

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About Psion Teklogix: www.psion.com
Psion Teklogix, a public company on the London Stock Exchange is the pioneer in quality mobile handheld computers and their application in industrial b2b markets around the world. It is headquartered in London with corporate offices located in Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

The company specialises in making mobile workers more productive by producing rugged mobile computer products and technology that make a real difference to its customers and to their employees. Its products are sold in more than 80 countries, wherever there is a requirement for the most intelligent and flexible mobile workforce automation devices.

Psion has pioneered the design and development of rugged mobile computers for the last 40 plus years and has unrivalled experience in mobilising field sales and service, logistics, supply chain and transportation solutions. With its technology, applications look better, work better and continue to be productive for longer.

About Original Software: www.origsoft.com
With a world class record of innovation, Original Software offers a solution focused completely on the goal of effective quality management. By embracing the full spectrum of Application Quality Management across a wide range of applications and environments, the company partners with customers and helps make quality a business imperative. Solutions include a quality management platform, manual testing, full test automation and test data management, all delivered with the control of business risk, cost, time and resources in mind.

More than 400 organisations operating in over 30 countries use Original Software solutions. Current users range from major multi-nationals to small software development shops, encompassing a wide range of industries, sectors and sizes. We are proud of our partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Cargill, HSBC, FedEx, Pfizer, DHL and many others.

Press contact
Kate Mackinder
Media Relations Officer
+44 1256 338 689
Kmackinder@origsoft.com

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

June 28, 2010 – 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

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About Original Software: www.origsoft.com
With a world class record of innovation, Original Software offers a solution focused completely on the goal of effective quality management. By embracing the full spectrum of Application Quality Management across a wide range of applications and environments, the company partners with customers and helps make quality a business imperative. Solutions include a quality management platform, manual testing, full test automation and test data management, all delivered with the control of business risk, cost, time and resources in mind.

More than 400 organisations operating in over 30 countries use Original Software solutions. Current users range from major multi-nationals to small software development shops, encompassing a wide range of industries, sectors and sizes. We are proud of our partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Cargill, HSBC, FedEx, Pfizer, DHL and many others.

Press contact
Kate Banyard (Née Mackinder)
Media Relations Officer
+44 1256 338 689
Kbanyard@origsoft.com

Original Software Blasts Away Market Frustrations with the Launch of Qualify

New Solution Aids Business Agility and Unifies the Software Delivery Process

17^th June 2010 – Original Software, the Application Quality Management (AQM) vendor, today announced the launch of Qualify, a brand new addition to its solution suite. Designed from the ground up to answer the growing need for QA to be less siloed, Qualify has brought effective Quality Management right into the heart of the software delivery process. This launch comes off the back of a new survey* which highlighted discontent in the market, with 84% of users stating that current products do 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.

“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,” said Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software.

The recent market survey* highlighted the divide that has been growing between available market solutions and business needs, uncovering an incredible discontent with current Quality Management products, with 84% of users claiming that their solutions were not meeting their needs. Of these the highest rated issues were; 38% wanted to map different processes and methodologies into their system; 37% suffered from a lack of cross-project information and wanted a unified view of all projects currently underway; 36% thought their solution should allow better communication and collaboration and 34% thought their systems were not user-friendly enough.

“Products such as HP Quality Centre are too rigid and have a siloed approach, limited to test management. Research shows that such an approach is incapable of addressing current needs. Collaboration needs to happen not just within the QA team, but among the entire project team as well,” continued Colin.

A report about Qualify from independent analyst group Ovum, noted “Organisations gain a centralised view of all their quality processes and tasks from project inception through to release. The product is also configurable to a great extent enabling organisations to fit the solution to their processes and workflow. Qualify supports a range of development methodologies including Agile, waterfall, and hybrid processes as well.”

Qualify’s powerful yet simple workflow means that users don’t have to be straight-jacketed into a particular way of working. There are options to select one of the pre-existing templates based on popular methodologies or build their own models quickly and easily. And more importantly, there is no need to choose just one. They can run multiple projects each using different methodologies, something that, the survey proved, is becoming more commonplace in today’s market, with 72% stating that their development departments were using combined methodologies.

One fantastic benefit of Qualify is the ability to view cross-project information and have a single view of team capacity and work schedules. “With a test team of eight at Target, we will have at least five projects on the go at any one time, with test cycles varying from 20 to 120 days. To be able to manage that activity, view workloads and work out capacities, it is essential to have a single view of what is going on” said customer Ala’a Shouaib at Target Group Plc.

A breeze to implement, Qualify has won the hearts of Original Software’s customer base and is now generally available. More information about the solution can be found at:

http://www.origsoft.com/qualify

Business Agility Hampered by AQM

84% of Application Development Managers say Application Quality Management solutions are not meeting their needs

23 April 2010 – A study into the views of Application Development Managers and IT Executives, announced today by Original Software, revealed that the need for business agility is driving the growth in spend for Application Quality Management (AQM) and Automated Software Quality (ASQ) solutions. However, the same study also uncovered an incredible discontent with current solutions available in the market place, with 84% of respondents claiming that they are not meeting their needs.

 The independent study, undertaken during March 2010, throughout the UK and USA, revealed that the need for enhanced business agility was the highest rated market driver for improving software quality, with 65% of respondents citing this as their main reason for investing in AQM and ASQ solutions. Almost half of the respondents claimed that the increasing complexity in their IT environments was also a key driver.

While the market focus on pure Agile development, the survey exposed that the real growth area is in mix and match development techniques, with 72% of organisations using combined approaches. Either developing their own hybrid blend, by choosing best practices from various methodologies, or by taking a combined approach, using different methodologies across departments and on different projects.

Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software stated: “The study has shown that systems supporting these developments need to be able to cope with complex scenarios and multiple, concurrent process models. When asked about the shortfalls of their current AQM solution, it’s not surprising that 38% are crying out for an option that would allow them to map different processes and methodologies into their system and not be straight-jacketed into one particular way of working.”

Software quality does seem to have increased in importance within organisations in the last few years, with 75% of companies recognising that ensuring application quality is vital to their business success. This is a substantial increase and a positive move from a year and a half ago when Original Software conducted a similar survey and found that many still viewed ensuring software quality as a nice-to-have or non-essential practice.

The study also revealed that IT budgets for AQM and Automated Software Quality (ASQ) are beginning to look healthier with 43% expecting their budgets to increase, (up from 21% in the 2008 survey). Only 10% expected spend on Quality Assurance to decrease (down from 31% last time).

 The 84% discontent with current solutions is mainly attributable to the way development teams are now working. 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. The solutions they are using are just not meeting these new requirements. 37% of respondents suffer from a lack of cross-project information and require solutions to provide a unified view of all projects currently underway. 36% would like to see a solution that allows more effective communication and collaboration between team members.

With the current recession driving the need for organisations having to do more with less, optimising resources and enhancing productivity is key for AQM and ASQ solutions. 34% of those surveyed think that their systems are not user-friendly enough. 32% would like to be able to better manage their resources and 28% want a solution to provide them with real-time visibility into project status. The ability to be able to personalise the information users view and to be able to better trace requirements throughout the lifecycle, are also widely desired, with 22% of respondents unable to achieve these goals with their current solutions.

“Flexibility is vital when it comes to AQM solutions of the future. Businesses are being driven towards being more agile, so it stands to reason that users are demanding dynamic solutions that can adapt to business changes quickly and easily. AQM that supports a mixture of development techniques is now absolutely essential and vendors that don’t respond to this are not reacting to customers quickly enough. The future of AQM has to be focused on providing better visibility, collaboration and control across multiple projects.” Armitage concluded.

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About the survey

This independent study was conducted by emedia Ltd. It surveyed 101 Senior IT executives and Application Development Managers during the month of March 2010. A full report on the survey results is available from Original Software upon request.

About Original Software: www.origsoft.com

With a world class record of innovation, Original Software offers a solution focused completely on the goal of effective quality management. By embracing the full spectrum of Application Quality Management across a wide range of applications and environments, the company partners with customers and helps make quality a business imperative. Solutions include a quality management platform, manual testing, full test automation and test data management, all delivered with the control of business risk, cost, time and resources in mind.

More than 400 organisations operating in over 30 countries use Original Software solutions. Current users range from major multi-nationals to small software development shops, encompassing a wide range of industries, sectors and sizes. We are proud of our partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Cargill, HSBC, FedEx, Pfizer, DHL and many others.

Press contact

Tulin Pledger
Head of Marketing
+44 1256 338 689
tpledger@origsoft.com

Application Modernisation Key to an Original Partnership

Desynit and Original Software partner for legacy transformation

13th April 2010 – Original Software, the Application Quality Management (AQM) vendor, today announced a strategic partnership with Desynit, IT services provider and specialist in the field of Application Modernisation. The latest in a string of partnership announcements for Original Software, Desynit joins the company’s growing community of service providers, with a particular focus on legacy transformation projects.

The use of testing and analysis tools which can record, replay and report on the operation of the current system are a key factor in beginning any systems modernisation effort. The creation of test cases for the legacy application allows the system to be documented, allowing changes to be made with confidence.

In addition to checking the quality of modern web-based applications and systems with graphical front ends, Original Software’s solutions also allow unrivalled testing on legacy systems. Legacy green screen applications can be tested at both the user interface level, as well as determining what is happening at the database level. Original Software also facilitates the creation of a test database, where the manipulation and scrambling of sensitive data is possible. Roll back to a previous state if the database becomes corrupted by the testing effort is also provided.

Matthew Morris, Director at Desynit explained: “Original Software’s solution suite is unique in its ability to thoroughly test legacy systems. This is essential in any migration or transformation project. When choosing to incrementally modernise parts of the existing system, test cases allow the results of the new processing to be compared to a base line, ensuring the result of the change is as designed. Extending the use of test cases to exploit automated testing unlocks the potential for developers to deliver system changes within reasonable timescales.”

“We have worked with Original Software for some time now and have had a great deal of interest in what Original Software offers. We are pleased to be formalising our relationship and look forward to continued success as a result of the partnership,” he added.

“Desynit offers in-depth expertise in the field of systems modernisation, an area which is of core interest to many of our customers” said Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software. “Businesses face a key choice in the ongoing maintenance of their software systems, completely replace or incrementally modernise. Our technology together with the services and expertise of Desynit provide an attractive solution to customers embarking on application modernisation projects.”

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About Desynit (www.desynit.com)
Desynit is an IT consultancy offering in-depth expertise in the field of application modernisation. Our skill is to develop our clients’ customised business critical applications to keep pace with their changing business needs. Whether we are working with a macro business or a global enterprise, our first step is to make sure we understand your business and what your teams needs from technology. From here, we use our insight and experience of legacy systems to devise and execute a cost effective IT strategy. In the last ten years we’ve managed to gain a great reputation and built up an impressive list of happy clients by delivering measurable improvement to businesses’ application software. As well as saving them time and money, our clients also say we’re good people to work with, which is nice to hear. It’s a strong combination in what’s a pretty crowded market, but that’s why we stand out.

About Original Software (www.origsoft.com)
With a world class record of innovation, Original Software offers a solution focused completely on the goal of effective quality management. By embracing the full spectrum of Application Quality Management across a wide range of applications and environments, the company partners with customers and helps make quality a business imperative. Solutions include a quality management platform, manual testing, full test automation and test data management, all delivered with the control of business risk, cost, time and resources in mind.

More than 400 organisations operating in over 30 countries use Original Software solutions. Current users range from major multi-nationals to small software development shops, encompassing a wide range of industries, sectors and sizes. We are proud of our partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Cargill, HSBC, FedEx, Pfizer, DHL and many others.

Press contact
Kate Mackinder
Media Relations Officer
+44 1256 338 689
Kmackinder@origsoft.com

Another byte of the cherry: TestBench for System i extends its enterprise reach to Far Eastern shores

Original Software releases TestBench for System i v7

30th March 2010 – Original Software, the Application Quality Management (AQM) vendor, today announced the release of TestBench for System i v7. The latest version of the company’s database management and verification solution now includes support for Double Byte Character Sets (DBCS) and IASP support. “With this latest update, our entire solution suite is now DBCS capable” said Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software.

“We’ve experienced increasing demand for our solutions in enterprise accounts, many with operations in far eastern geographies. Although quite a niche field, no other supplier has capabilities to support DBCS for testing green screen apps or at the database level. For the modern business, being able to comprehensively test systems in all its operating geographies is simply a must,” he expanded.

In addition TestBench v7 now supports applications using (IASPs) Independent Auxiliary Storage Pools. An IASP allows another instance of an application, using the same library names and structures, to be configured, making it very easy to switch between versions without the need to reload software or restart the i5/OS partition. All TestBench modules have been updated to include full IASP support.

Central to Original Software’s ‘Top to Bottom’ philosophy, TestBench is the only software testing solution with the unique ability to analyze what happens in the database as a result of the test process and to validate against predetermined business rules. It also addresses the creation of cut down, representative test environments, scrambling and obfuscation of personal data and supports re-use with a database ‘undo’ option. All this functionality is now available for System i, Oracle and also SQL Server back ends.

A recent report by industry analyst group Ovum commented that “no other functional test suite that we are aware of covers test data management to this extent. It is Original’s most powerful differentiator.”

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About Original Software (www.origsoft.com)

With a world class record of innovation, Original Software offers a solution focused completely on the goal of effective quality management. By embracing the full spectrum of Application Quality Management across a wide range of applications and environments, the company partners with customers and helps make quality a business imperative. Solutions include a quality management platform, manual testing, full test automation and test data management, all delivered with the control of business risk, cost, time and resources in mind.

More than 400 organisations operating in over 30 countries use Original Software solutions. Current users range from major multi-nationals to small software development shops, encompassing a wide range of industries, sectors and sizes. We are proud of our partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Cargill, HSBC, FedEx, Pfizer, DHL and many others.

Press contact

Kate Mackinder
Media Relations Officer
+44 1256 338 689
Kmackinder@origsoft.com

Original Software signs partnership agreement with Test-Direct

A QUICK path to success

18th March 2010 – Original Software, the Application Quality Management (AQM) vendor, today announced a strategic partnership with Test-Direct, the UK’s premier financial services testing organisation. The partner agreement allows the service provider to position Original Software solutions in opportunities where there is a good fit with customer requirements. Test-Direct joins Original Software’s growing community of service providers, with a particular focus on financial services sector.

Test-Direct offer all their clients the benefits of their proven QUICK test methodology. QUICK is a risk based, real world approach to delivering quality testing faster, reducing costs and improving testing process through Quality, Understanding, Improvement, Communication and Knowledge. This methodology is being mapped as a template into Original Software’s Application Quality Management solution, Qualify, for the benefit of Test-Direct’s customer base.

Alan Reilly, MD of Test-Direct expanded: “Original Software’s solution suite has a unique approach to functional testing capability that makes it ideal for certain customer accounts and situations, such as user acceptance testing, where many other solutions are just too technical for the end user. TestDrive and TestDrive-Assist provide a powerful combination when it comes to rapid production of repeatable scripts for regression testing, which is imperative when time-to-market is critical. We have had a great deal of interest in Original Software’s solution and are working on some key high profile opportunities at the moment.”

“Test-Direct offer in-depth expertise in the financial services sector” said Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software. “Their combination of onsite, nearshore and offshore services offer a unique combination of cost savings without compromising the benefits of face to face consultancy. We’ve built a good relationship with the company already and the feedback on our solution has been really positive. Mapping Test-Direct’s QUICK test methodology into our quality management offering is a great example of how simple it is to apply a partner’s preferred quality process in to our technology.”

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About Test-Direct (http://www.test-direct.com)
Since March 2002, Test-Direct has been combining in-depth industry expertise with practical testing skills, tools and methods. With testing solutions delivered by cost effective, planned or on demand teams, we ensure that our clients are able to launch new products and services with a risk based knowledge of their quality and performance and go live with confidence.
We pride ourselves on working with our customers not for them. Test-Direct always seek to form partnerships that produce win-win outcomes. We enjoy ongoing and established relationships with some of the UK’s largest blue chips.

About Original Software (www.origsoft.com)

With a world class record of innovation, Original Software offers a solution focused completely on the goal of effective quality management. By embracing the full spectrum of Application Quality Management across a wide range of applications and environments, the company partners with customers and helps make quality a business imperative. Solutions include a quality management platform, manual testing, full test automation and test data management, all delivered with the control of business risk, cost, time and resources in mind.

More than 400 organisations operating in over 30 countries use Original Software solutions. Current users range from major multi-nationals to small software development shops, encompassing a wide range of industries, sectors and sizes. We are proud of our partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Cargill, HSBC, FedEx, Pfizer, DHL and many others.

Press contact

Kate Mackinder
Media Relations Officer
+44 1256 338 689
Kmackinder@origsoft.com

Agile quality assurance takes centre stage at TestExpo 2010

Original Software to present at this year’s event

15th March 2010 – Original Software, the Application Quality Management (AQM) vendor, today announced its attendance at this year’s TestExpo where George Wilson, the company’s Operations Director, will be presenting a conference session on the subject of automating software quality in an Agile environment.

TestExpo is a free event aimed at everyone with an interest in software quality. It takes place Thursday 25th March at the Congress Centre in London. George Wilson’s presentation ‘Agile Test Automation – Can it be done?’ starts at 10am and will explore how to define a test process to ensure application quality within an Agile environment.

“Agile is a methodology that is seeing increasingly widespread adoption. Yet for the QA professional an Agile approach can cause discomfort. In the ideal world they would have a ‘finished’ product to verify against a finished specification. To be asked to validate a moving target against a changing backdrop is counter intuitive. It means that the use of technology and automation are much more difficult, and it requires a new approach to testing, in the same way that it does for the users and the developers” expanded George Wilson.

Original Software’s solution suite has received high praise for its capabilities in enabling Agile development in a recent report by industry analyst group, Ovum. In the report the company’s solutions were applauded for being a better fit for agile processes than any competitive functional test automation suite. “[Original Software] supports a range of development methodologies including Agile, waterfall, and hybrid processes as well. The solution offers pre-built templates for Agile methodologies such as Scrum, DSDM, XP etc. Users can also create their own templates, or modify an existing template to suit their needs” it states.

“In its totality, Original’s suite is appropriate for automation specialists, non-technical testers and even business users for acceptance testing. It fits in with classic waterfall processes, and it can also be used in agile processes more easily than other functional test automation suites.” This report was published by Ovum in February 2010 and copies will be available for all delegates visiting Original Software’s stand.

Since its launch in 1996, TestExpo has grown to become a respected source of testing news and innovation and a valuable forum for debate, discussion and networking amongst testing professionals. It is free to attend, and interested parties should register for TestExpo at: http://www.testexpo.co.uk.

Ends

About Original Software (www.origsoft.com)

With a world class record of innovation, Original Software offers a solution focused completely on the goal of effective quality management. By embracing the full spectrum of Application Quality Management across a wide range of applications and environments, the company partners with customers and helps make quality a business imperative. Solutions include a quality management platform, manual testing, full test automation and test data management, all delivered with the control of business risk, cost, time and resources in mind.

More than 400 organisations operating in over 30 countries use Original Software solutions. Current users range from major multi-nationals to small software development shops, encompassing a wide range of industries, sectors and sizes. We are proud of our partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Cargill, HSBC, FedEx, Pfizer, DHL and many others.

Press contact

Kate Mackinder
Media Relations Officer
+44 1256 338 689
Kmackinder@origsoft.com

FDM Mounties Charge into Action Flying the Original Software Banner

Original Software partners with FDM for training, software, services and outsourcing

01 February 2010 – Original Software, the Application Quality Management (AQM) vendor, today announced a strategic partnership with FDM, the IT Services provider. The partner agreement allows FDM to not only resell Original Software solutions, but also allows full use of them within their training academy. FDM will train their apprentice testers on the Original Software solution set, so that all of the academy graduates – called FDM Mounties – go out into the services workplace fully comprehending the solutions and their potential benefits to customers.

“FDM is well renowned in the industry for the quality of its outsourcing services” said Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software. “It has a very strong customer base and an award-winning academy that helps fuel its global, skilled resource pool. We have worked well with the company on some high profile customer accounts and will be proud to include FDM’s services as part of our offering. Both companies put quality right at the heart of their business models.”

Rod Flavell, CEO of FDM expanded: “FDM has trained over 1500 individuals to the highest industry standards. We train our Mounties in the most cutting edge IT tools and solutions, so that they can go out into the marketplace as talented professionals with expertise in the very best technologies. We have a strong foothold in the financial sector, and so Original Software’s ability to validate databases and test green screen apps is key, but we are seeing widespread demand for solutions that work well in an agile environment and with SAP testing – something their solutions excel at.”

Andy King, Head of Testing at FDM Group said: “We have worked with Original Software for some time now and have been testing on various client sites, utilising their tool suite. The decision to partner with the team is fantastic news and we will benefit greatly in 2010, as the demand for both FDM Testers and Original Software continues to grow.”

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About FDM (www.fdmgroup.com) (www.fdmacademy.com)
FDM Group is an international IT Services provider specialising in five core service areas: Application Support, Development, Testing, Infrastructure and Training. Supplying IT solutions to over 200 blue-chip clients within various sectors for over a decade, certifies their expertise. With offices in the UK, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the USA, FDM has shown exponential growth throughout the years and has firmly established itself as an award-winning IT Services Provider.

About Original Software (www.origsoft.com)
With a world class record of innovation, Original Software offers a solution focused completely on the goal of effective quality management. By embracing the full spectrum of Application Quality Management across a wide range of applications and environments, the company partners with customers and helps make quality a business imperative. Solutions include a quality management platform, manual testing, full test automation and test data management, all delivered with the control of business risk, cost, time and resources in mind.

More than 400 organisations operating in over 30 countries use Original Software solutions. Current users range from major multi-nationals to small software development shops, encompassing a wide range of industries, sectors and sizes. We are proud of our partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Cargill, HSBC, FedEx, Pfizer, DHL and many others.

Press contact
Kate Mackinder
Media Relations Officer
+44 1256 338 689
Kmackinder@origsoft.com

Test Management Summit 2010 gets Original

Original Software to host sessions on Agile Testing, Test Automation and Test Data Management

25 January 2010 – Original Software, the Application Quality Management (AQM) vendor, today announced its attendance at the 2010 Test Management Summit where George Wilson, the company’s Operations Director, will be hosting a workshop on Test Data Management as well as speaking in a session on the subject of Agile Testing. Peter Hopley, the company’s EMEA Sales Director, will also be presenting a summit session about Test Automation.

The annual summit, which takes place in London on Tuesday the 26th and Wednesday the 27th January, is the fourth of its kind. Run in conjunction with the Test Management Forum (TMF) – the forum for testing professionals in the UK, it is hosted and organised by Gerrard Consulting.

The summit is aimed at senior testing practitioners and managers, focussing on trends, futures and the big issues in test management. It aims to encourage networking and bring like minded test managers together to discuss techniques, approaches and tools, disseminating good ideas within the industry.

The Workshop day, takes place on Tuesday the 26th at the conference centre at Balls Brothers, Minster Pavement and the short, intensive sessions are aimed to give testers a head start in each topic, covering such things as exploratory and innovative testing, SCRUM, open source tools, and Agile test management. George Wilson will be hosting a workshop at 12.45pm, focussed on Test Data Management. Entitled ‘Taking Control of Your Test Data’, the workshop will explore strategies and techniques that can be used to support QA teams with the creation, management and verification of test data.

The Summit day takes place at the IoD building, Pall Mall, and the session topics, voted on by TMF members, include Agile testing, regression testing, measuring team performance, Test-Driven Development, requirements and performance testing. George Wilson will be leading a session at 10am, entitled ‘Agile Test Automation – Can it be Done?’ He will explore how to define a test process to ensure application quality within an Agile environment.

Peter Hopley’s session is at 3.45pm. Entitled ‘Maximising your Test Automation Success’, the session will investigate what determines the short and long term success of test automation, what to automate and what to test manually and how you can manage the jump to automation in a seamless and painless manner.

For more information on the sessions or to book at place at the Summit, visit http://www.uktmf.com/index.php?q=node/226

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About Original Software (www.origsoft.com)

With a world class record of innovation, Original Software offers a solution focused completely on the goal of effective quality management. By embracing the full spectrum of Application Quality Management across a wide range of applications and environments, the company partners with customers and helps make quality a business imperative. Solutions include a quality management platform, manual testing, full test automation and test data management, all delivered with the control of business risk, cost, time and resources in mind.

More than 400 organisations operating in over 30 countries use Original Software solutions. Current users range from major multi-nationals to small software development shops, encompassing a wide range of industries, sectors and sizes. We are proud of our partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Cargill, HSBC, FedEx, Pfizer, DHL and many others.

Press contact

Kate Mackinder
Media Relations Officer
+44 1256 338 689
Kmackinder@origsoft.com