Welcome

Dear Friends:

As we reflect upon our notable progress in the second quarter, we realize that it is a testament to our ability to meet the needs of our customers worldwide. In this regard, our Test Center of Excellence (TCoE) has been playing a pivotal role. AppLabs has been a pioneer and thought leader in TCoE model. Today, AppLabs leverages its proprietary SCORE framework and TCoE that help realization of our customer goals much faster than the traditional discreet testing thereby reducing time to market and overall costs.

AppLabs has developed its standardization-centralization-optimization-review and expand (SCORE) methodology. The methodology integrates a number of methodologies e.g. test process improvement methodologies such as TMMi and TPI. It is based on assessing the current maturity of the customer in terms of testing and creating an improvement roadmap based on SCORE. SCORE is typically used as part of our TCoEs contracts. In this issue of Perspective the featured case studies includes our TCoE engagements at Farmers Insurance and Friends Provident.

Industry analysts continued endorsing AppLabs. The company was featured in reports or presentations by leading analysts - Forrester, Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), NelsonHall and IDC. NelsonHall in its report on Software Testing Services continued to name AppLabs as the Largest Software Testing Services Pure-Play in the World. On the Awards front AppLabs won the Deloitte Top 50 Philly, India Fast 25 and VII Times 100 during the quarter.

During the quarter, we made one very important acquisition - ValueMinds. Through ValueMinds acquisition we gained a high-end toolkit that provides a way for testers to multiply their productivity. It is our intention to use this IP and other IPs to continue to position AppLabs as a thought leader in the testing market. When someone hires AppLabs they naturally get our highly qualified testers but now they also get these proprietary tools and methodologies that can dramatically improve the quality of the software, reduce time to market, all in a very cost-effective way. The tools owned by us through ValueMinds acquisition address the most pressing problems faced by testers: how to generate test data quickly, design test cases effectively, and automate as much of the routine testing work as possible to enhance productivity.

In this issue's Business Insights section we have a white paper on Software as a Service (SaaS) - Supply Chain Software Testing. Technical Insights features Industry Comments on - Customer Experience: An Approach to Testing and Increasing Efficiency-The Advantages of Release-Based Testing Framework. Under the success story heading apart from the featured case studies we have a case study on VMIX, provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) video platform solutions. In the Project Example section we have a paper on how AppLabs helped with the Maintenance and Production Support for a Leading Independent Power Producer.

Like in our previous issues, this issue also covers our company news and has details of events in which we have made presentations.

If you'd like to share something with me, or have any questions or comments, I look forward to hearing it. You can write to me directly at sashir@applabs.com.

Best wishes,

Sashi Reddi
Founder, Chairman and CEO
AppLabs

Business Insight

Software testing is an established part of the project lifecycle and these days it is generally accepted that there are significant benefits to be gained from testing early in the lifecycle. Testing early refers to testing the requirements, but how exactly do you test the requirements?

This paper attempts to describe the assessment criteria that can be applied to the requirements specification while performing static testing. Please click here to read the complete whitepaper.

Technical View point

When a company rolls out a product or provides a service, one of their aims is likely to be to achieve good quality. They then hit the problem of defining exactly what is meant by quality. It is an attribute that is easily recognised, but not easily defined. Please click here to read more.

Company News

Analyst Report - Pure Play Independent Software Testing Services Market in Europe 2008-2012

Infiniti Research, a leading analyst and advisory firm based in the UK, in its latest report focused on pure play testing players has profiled AppLabs. The report titled 'Pure Play Independent Software Testing Services Market in Europe 2008-2012' forecasts the size of the Pure Play Independent Software Testing Services market in Europe over the period 2008-2012. Further, it discusses the key market trends, drivers and challenges of the Pure Play Independent Software Testing Services market in Europe, and profiles some of the key vendors of this industry.

9th Annual International Software Testing Conference

Makarand Teje, President and CEO of AppLabs was invited to speak at QAI's annual International Software Testing Conference (STC) held in Bangalore recebtly. Mak was a keynote speaker and spoke on 'Software Testing- a Business Imperative.' His presentation was very well received.

Webinars

AppLabs had organised the following webinars in the last quarter -

Measuring Business Value of Quality: Though it is widely publicized that Quality processes will overall reduce the cost and significantly improve the quality of the product in context, there is limited awareness on quantifying the business value of quality and knowledge of defining and using the measurement framework to measure the impact of quality and the return on investment. Sai Chintala VP, Technical Services at AppLabs provided an overview of measurement framework used in software testing services space, and focused on a comprehensive walkthrough of various metrics that can be defined, and derived to measure the impact of quality. Please click here to get the copy of the webinar presentation.

The Practicalities of Requirements Testing: Software testing is an established part of the project lifecycle and today, testing has moved ahead in the development lifecycle as the companies understand better that pushing the testing process to the end of the product lifecycle may result in costly errors. Testing early means testing your requirements, but how exactly do you test a requirement? In this webinar, Jane Tooze, Principal Consultant at AppLabs had set the assessment criteria that can be used to test requirements either individually as they are being written or as a document. Click here to get the copy of the presentation.

How to Benefit from the Managed Testing: Managed testing service offers multiple and often unparalleled advantages over any other traditional model of outsourcing. However, there is limited awareness among customer organizations on how to fully leverage benefits of a managed testing service. In this webinar Nanda Padmaraju, Head of Solutions Engineering at AppLabs UK showcased how organizations can internally prepare their management, procurement, internal as well as external IT development partners to embrace and collaboratively work with a managed testing service partner and reap the benefits that it offers. Please click here for the webinar presentation.

AppLabs attains PCI QSA and ASV Certifications

AppLabs has become certified with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council (SSC) as a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) and as an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV). These two certifications will allow AppLabs to help credit card merchants reach their PCI compliance objectives. These services compliment AppLabs' other security offerings: web application penetration testing, network security assessment, and source code review. Please click here to read more.

EuroSTAR 2009

Scott Andress, Vice President of AppLabs spoke on 'Collaboration not Competition' at EuroSTAR 2009 in Sweden recently. EuroSTAR is Europe's most successful and widely acknowledged gathering of software testing professionals.

AppLabs is a Finalist for the Red Herring 100 Global Award

AppLabs has been short listed for the Red Herring 100 Global Awards . Red Herring 100 winners and finalists from North America, Europe and Asia of the last three years were eligible for this award. The Red Herring editorial team used a very competitive process to whittle down this pool of 1800 eligible promising companies to the 200 finalists of this award. Evaluations were made on both quantitative and qualitative criteria such as financial performance, innovation, management, global strategy, and ecosystem integration. Please click here to read the press release.

AppLabs in Silicon India 100 List

AppLabs has been named to Silicon India Top 100 2009 list. si100 is an annual listing of the top 100 technology companies founded and managed by Indians in the U.S. The si100 not only represents the continuing rise and glory of Indian entrepreneurship in high-tech but also recognizes companies impacting the market place.The magazine tracks over 1,000 companies in the U.S. and selects the ones that have the potential to be the game changer in their segment of technology or business.

Please click here for the complete listing.