Testing tools can check, not test: DevelopSense's Founder

By Ojas Sharma   |   Friday, 20 November 2009, 01:44 IST   |    5 Comments
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Testing tools can check, not test: DevelopSense's Founder
Bangalore: The long drawn debate on what should firm opt for - automated testing or manual testing, is finally cut short by Michael Bolton, Founding Partner of DevelopSense, while speaking at the 9th Annual International Software Testing Conference (STC) 09. Bolton strongly opposed the process of testing by machines. The DevelopSense Founder says that there is a huge difference between checking and testing. Checking is a process of confirming and verifying and can be done by machines. Testing, on the other hand, is an activity that requires human to perform. "We test not only for repeatability, but also for adaptability, value and threats to the value," Bolton added. A machine lacks emotions and hence will only do what we program it to do. Change being the only thing constant, while Bolton voiced for a change in the attitude towards manual testing, the other leaders voiced for some other changes in the Indian testing scenario. The Indian testing companies require to do something different and be the catalyst for change. In order to do so, an Indian company should invest in disruptive technologies such as multicore and hybrid systems, virtual and fabric computing, social network and cloud computing, which will help to accelerate growth, says Gangadhariah C P, Senior Vice President and Global Head of testing services of Wipro. He feels that India has the highest potential of coming up with disruptive technology. "Recover of economy is much quicker than we expected. Businesses are looking at spending money now, which had paused for sometime," said Makrand Teje, President and CEO, AppLabs. This statement reflected the optimistic attitude in the software testing industry, which has gone through a rough patch in the last one year. Recession has brought in many changes to the software testing industry. Teje feels that the industry is now more focused towards prevention rather than detection of defects. He also feels that India will continue to have advantage over other countries in terms of quality and cost equations for at least another six-seven years. Gangadhariah says, "Testing survives on change. If you look at IT industry most of the change is driven due to technology. But during recession everything has changed." In order for the industry to survive, there are certain steps that companies should follow, and the most important step is to become credible advisors of their clients. Testing firms should tell their clients what is good or bad for them and become their trusted advisors," he added. IDC has forecasted a CAGR of 19 percent for discrete global testing services to reach 17.7 billion by 2013. Gartner says that testing could make upto 25-40 percent of software budget. This industry has been hit hard by recession, but over the years the role of testing has increased greatly. Indian software testing industry is looking to expand in the West, however experts feel that it should not focus only on the West but make quality tested applications for local market as well.