I'm passionate about software testing, software development and cloud computing. I've joined SOASTA in 2010 and I am currently VP Business Development Europe. This is a personal blog, and the opinions expressed here are NOT those of my employer.
A quick personal note to let you know that after 6 great years spent in Europe, my family and I are moving back to the Bay Area! This is the third time I’m packing my bags for the West Coast! Back in 1989, I spent one year in Seattle (Go Seahawks!!) at the university. I’ve spent 8 years between 1998 and 2006, working for IBM. I’m now heading back for god knows how long to work more closely with my colleague at SOASTA. I guess there is something special about this country …
I can’t resist to show you the latest video we’ve sent to our customers on Valentine’s day. This is real footage of our latest product mPulse, born soon after the logNormal acquisition only a few months ago. I’m so amazed by the work done by our engineering team in such a short time! In a nutshell, mPulse redefines the Real User Measurement space, allowing customers to understand in real-time how their web and mobile apps are behaving in the field. To help deal with bad user experience of mobile and web apps, mPulse comes to the rescue with Big Data, Real-time Processing, Actionable Intelligence and amazing 3D visualization!!
I’m having more and more discussions with customers looking at investing into a mobile test automation solution. It’s a great way for me to listen to their problems and discuss potential solutions. One recurring requirement I’m hearing is the capability for the automation solution to integrate with HP QTP. And I have a big problem with the rationale that makes them request such integration.
I have nothing against HP products (or any testing products) as long as they’re used for what they’re designed for. As an example, Loadrunner is probably best fit for load and performance testing of client-server applications rather than large scale testing of web or mobile applications. Same goes with QTP in my opinion. It’s probably king for functional testing of desktop applications in a waterfall environment but is completely unfit for mobile applications which require dev and test high velocity. Do we still need a rudimentary script language (vbscript! Come on, this is 2013!) for fast test creation? Do we want to write code or rather record directly on an actual mobile device? Do we want to use a product that was built for mobile or a product built for desktop apps, developed 12 years ago? Do we want developers to use … QTP? Really? Continue reading
I’ve been a hobbyist photographer for the past 10 years. Pretty much synched with the birth of my daughter who is today happy to enjoy 15,000 pictures of her first week in life The time was 2002 with the first decent digital camera out there. My first one was a Kodac DC3200 and was a great tool for me to learn the basics of photography. Then I moved to a Canon G2 before switching to a Canon SLR as Digital SLRs were costing an arm, a leg and everything in between. I made the mistake to rent a Leica M6 (At Keeble and Suchat in Palo Alto) so I could understand all the fuss about these cameras and feel confident that it was for snob. Huge mistake … I had to have one the following week, and another one, and another one … Oh and how about a Rolleiflex, oh and a Hasselblad, oh and look at those nice Russian Camera. At some point I probably had more than 20 working camera at home … And a few lenses. I was processing my own black and white and really, really enjoyed everything about photography. I was carrying a huge bag with many camera inside at all time. Then life catched up. Lots of traveling, different priorities. Sold most of the camera (Kept the Leica. Come on!), still have 300 rolls of film in my basement, and settled on a mid-range Canon digital camera for family events.
Beginning of the year, I’ve purchased an iPhone 4S to replace my Android HTC Desire (which takes crappy pictures) and started playing with it. I “discovered” Instagram back in May during a photo trip to Seattle with one of my good friend. We decided to shoot only with our iPhone for 2 days. I fell in love with the simplicity of the combo iPhone+Instagram. Reminded me of the time of my Leica + 50mm lens. No zoom (zoom with your feet!) and I’ve always liked the square format (Makes you think differently). Instagram allows me to give some “pop” to my photos (mainly contrast) and I’m able to share my pictures with a very private group of friends around the world. When I travel, it’s also a great way to keep in touch with the family as well (FaceTime does help too).
According to different reports, the global software testing market is around $30B and is looking at growing at about $50B in 2020. Not too shabby for the bastard child of IT! It is estimated that around 30% to 40% of this market is taken by offshore testing services (these days located in India, Eastern Europe and South America for the most part). I have nothing against outsourcing testing services as long as they bring the best value to the development organization. The problem with these services (from my own experience) is the fact that they still operate the same way than 20 years ago. Basically performing manual testing at the end of the whole development phase and have still a lot of difficulties to embed within an agile environment. I’m thinking that a lot of testing services company (especially the largest one) are doing everything they can to keep software testing in a status quo, in a dormant state for their own benefit. I don’t see a lot of these companies trying to invest in automation offering … How long will they keep fooling customers?
I just realized it’s been more than 2 months without writing anything on my blog. Nope I didn’t take an extended break but been very busy with our mobile automation product CloudTest Mobile! And today I’m looking at getting you busy as well!
If you remember, back in February of this year, SOASTA introduced a brand new capability to CloudTest allowing developers and testers around the world to perform functional test automation for mobile devices. We also introduced our Early Adopter Program, allowing participants early access to new product features before the general release of the product. We received great feedback from our users and since then our engineering team has worked tirelessly to integrate this feedback into our product.
A couple of weeks ago, we were very excited to announce the latest major release of CloudTest Mobile which brings to market unprecedented features, allowing you to deliver even better quality mobile apps. As with our initial release, we’re opening up an Early Adopter Program dedicated to you developers and testers! Being part of this new program will allow you to:
If you’re in software development (and if you are reading this blog, I’m assuming this is the case. If you’re looking for cooking lessons, this is not the right place. Really.) you know the feeling. During long months of a release cycle, it is a roller coaster. From the initial idea which gets everyone in the company excited (if you don’t get pumped up by what your engineering team is cooking, maybe you’re in the wrong company …), to the early mock-up, the first demo (I remember the first demo we had a chance to see back in Feburary. I was speechless. Literally.), the beta-phase and the first feedback from actual customers, seeing the competition trying to get in the bandwagon, all the technical breakthrough the engineering team is able to crack … Everything leads to this day. When engineering, marketing, sales and operation cross the finish line (which is also the starting line) together. It is a feeling that will never get old for me. NEVER.
Not much update from me in the last few months as we’ve been EXTREMELY busy We’ve been taken over by the whole mobile movement as our TouchTest Beta is going strong all across the world. We’re currently working with 100′s of companies who have a chance to be part of this beta to test their native application. The feedback were receiving is incredible and I’m helping a bunch of companies and partners to get started with our technology. If you’re into the mobile business (as you should be!) and are struggling with functional test automation, register on our website and I’ll be happy to get you started. If you’re still not familiar with TouchTest you can watch the webinar I ran in EMEA last month which will tell you why we came up with this new way of doing functional test automation for native applications. It has a lot to do with what customers were struggling with
You can also watch this video where Robert Scoble discovers TouchTest for the first time! He looks very impressed! Ken Gardner, our founder and executive chairman, and Tal Broda our VP of engineering, gives him an in-depth view of our product.
We’re also very busy on the partner front. In the past few weeks, we’ve announced some very important relationships with market leaders. Believe it or not, we’re partnering with HP as we’re able today to leverage their new public Cloud. We’ve also announced yesterday our support to the next-generation cloud from RackSpace and with OpenStack! As we’re working with 17 Cloud APIs today, supporting an open source API is very important for us and will help us integrate quickly OpenStack compatible cloud providers (if you’re interested to understand how we leverage Cloud APIs, there is a very good article from Dave Murphy on our blog). During the Rackspace event, Tom Lounibos and Dave Murphy gave their impression on the announcement and what it will mean for SOASTA in the future:
Last but not least, we’ve got more and more testers using CloudTest Lite (we’re seeing hundreds of download every day!) But we also want to influence developers to run more tests! As more developers are working using a PaaS, the best way for us to influence them is to be part of their development platform. That’s why we announced support for VMWare CloudFoundry last week. It will allow every developers using CloudFoundry to use CloudTest Lite for free during their development cycle. We’re the official test automation framework for CloudFoundry. That’s our present to them for their first birthday!
I’m writing this short note while attending the Selenium Conference in London where we have a chance to demo CloudTest and TouchTest to the Selenium community. I’m very excited to be in direct contact with true testers from all over the world and who are investing into the latest software testing trends. There are a few companies really innovative in this hot software testing market and we’re really glad to be recognized as such by the Selenium community. The Selenium movement has done a lot to help testers over the years and being part of this event is our way to say THANK YOU!
I'm passionate about software testing, software development and cloud computing. I've joined SOASTA in 2010 and I am currently VP Business Development Europe. This is a personal blog, and the opinions expressed here are NOT those of my employer. 
