Tuesday, July 03, 2012:
Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO.L), the leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing and management solutions, today launched Silk Mobile™ – a comprehensive mobile application testing solution that helps companies to create more advanced and reliable mobile business applications.
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Silk Mobile™ is the most complete mobile application testing solution on the market. The tool is designed to provide an elegant, easy-to-use, comprehensive approach to the functional testing of applications on mobile devices across multiple OS platforms including Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and HTML5. The tool is designed to work with mobile applications the way an end user would interact with his or her mobile devices with gesture support including multi-touch, swipe, drag & drop, zoom, and scrolling. This allows Silk Mobile™ to capture pertinent information and data by factoring in the multiple ways end users interact with different devices. To add to the application’s versatility, Silk Mobile™ test scripts can be exported to a number of scripting languages such as Java, C#, , Python or Perl.
State of Mobile Apps market in India
With lower set-up costs and a huge pool of IT talent, many Western companies are eyeing up India for app production, effectively outsourcing this process. But the domestic app market is also booming. The value of the Indian value added services (VAS) industry, which includes mobile apps, was estimated at $3.4bn (£2.2bn) in 2011, according to Deloitte. The rate at which this market is growing can be ascertained form the fact that on an average 100 million apps are being downloaded in India every month.
Considering the quality and complexity of apps that are being developed for mobiles, it would not be wrong to say that testing the mobile apps is precisely a function to pledge the quality of mobile phones. Given the dynamism and level of innovation in the field of mobile technology, the importance of testing has already begun to unfold. The diversity in mobile computing environments presents unique challenges in developing apps. quality assurance, and deployment, which calls for requiring higher and more intricate testing regime. As the handheld devices become ubiquitous, business are under constant pressure to deliver a smooth and immersive consumer experience making the need for app. testing even more compelling. Businesses are starting to appreciate testing as a basic business function which qualifies the launch and therefore defines the success of the applications.
David Taylor, President of Micro Focus, Asia Pacific and Japan, said. “The demand for smartphones is voracious. This trend is powering the demand for innovative applications with much higher degrees of sophistication. There is an ever increasing pressure on the testers to keep pace with the explosive growth of mobile apps. With most of these applications being used for commercial purposes, bbusinesses are striving to deliver a smooth and flawless customer experience on the mobile devices.” He further added, “I believe that Silk Mobile Testing application will accelerate the development of more advanced and higher quality mobile applications and prove to be a linchpin in powering this revolution.”
“The extent to which Smartphone usage is gaining traction in India is tremendous. Due to this growing number of mobile devises and newer device adoption, mobile applications are rapidly gaining popularity. Predictions suggest that the India-specific mobile application market could be worth close to $4bn in the next few years. In this scenario, it is crucial that the mobile applications should be tested rigorously to ensure a smooth experience for the customers. Silk Mobile™ is a transformational tool that makes cross platform testing a cakewalk. It helps them deliver their customers, mobile applications which are faster and of high quality”, explains Nitin Dang, Country General Manager, Micro Focus, India and SAARC. Further to this he added that “With its ease of use and broad support for multiple devices, Silk Mobile™ is filling a gap that exists today in the mobile apps testing market. Organizations are under continued pressure to release mobile apps faster and more often than ever before. Silk Mobile will help them deliver and will be the one-stop mobile testing solution for companies producing high quality mobile applications for their customers.”
As with any emerging technology, developing and implementing mobile applications poses a number of unique challenges. Mobile applications must be thoroughly tested prior to release, or the cost of failure can be high. If a customer doesn’t have an excellent experience with an application – as a result of a bug, for example – they may well switch to a rival product or simply won’t use the application.
Borland’s new solution, Silk Mobile™, has been designed to address these concerns. It enables mobile application developers to create and run tests on mobile devices that are connected to your PC by a simple USB cable or WiFi. Since Silk Mobile runs on the actual device, you can be sure that the tests represent genuine user experiences.
Building robust, repeatable, and maintainable mobile application test suites with Silk Mobile™
Some of the features and benefits of the Silk Mobile™ testing application include:
Broad Mobile OS Platform support – Silk Mobile supports testing of applications on the latest range of platforms including Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and HTML5. Regardless of corporate policy, customers have a choice: embrace the – bring your own device (BYOD) concept or continue to support standard devices. Either way, Silk Mobile is a single solution across all mobile initiatives.
Easy to use because it’s visual – Using the visual capture capabilities, record tests directly from the mobile device and visually create, playback, and edit. Also, visual action & verification commands can be used to add logic to test scripts without writing a single line of code
Native, Image, and Optical Character Recognition – Test capability is not limited by OS changes because Silk Mobile uses a three tier approach to recognise navigation and screen content. Customers will never have to stop testing to wait for the latest OS platform releases. This means no delays in the test automation process
Gesture Support: The way your users use it – Interact with mobile devices just like end users will. Silk Mobile supports multi-touch, swipe, drag & drop, zoom, and scrolling. The test application is also complementary towards gestures, virtual keypads, alerts/notifications and device information is crucial to capturing the actual usage of the device
Broad choice of scripting languages – Export your test scripts to Borland’s Silk4j, Silk4Net, jUnit, nUnit, C#, MSTest, Python or Perl. Now mobile tests can be run as part of your continuous delivery processes or your existing test automation suites
Integrated Test Management – Execute, schedule, and maintain exported mobile test scripts using Borland’s Silk Central. In addition, Silk Central’s configuration testing capabilities allows for management of your own private device hub for secure testing of your mobile applications. Mobile testing becomes “just another test”, allowing you to manage and track quality of your mobile applications, whatever the device platform
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