Software Testing Blog

Apologies for the alliteration, but things have been ultra-busy around the halls of uTest this week.  The reason our phones have been ringing off the hook is because we announced the results of our 1st Quarter Bug Battle on Tuesday.

In case you missed it, we’ve received some fantastic media coverage in the past few days.  Who knew the world would be so interested in the results of 1,000+ QA professionals from 64 countries simultaneously testing the world’s three most popular networking sites?  Ok, well we had a pretty good idea they’d care, but we’re glad it captured their attention.  Here are a few of the noteworthy articles:

- TechCrunch: uTest Bug Battle: Which Social Network Is The Buggiest?
- Dr. Dobbs: Bugs In Social Networking Software? You’re Kidding, Right?
- eWeek:  Facebook Triumphs LinkedIn, MySpace in uTest’s Bug Battle

Our community’s ability to mobilize quickly and provide real-world testing coverage is making a strong impression on a growing number of companies.  These firms are looking for ways to do more with less — and the uTest community is primed to help them meet their QA needs.  Keep up the good work!

If you or someone you know is struggling to develop iPhone apps, this recent item from TechCrunch may provide relief:

At the recent Future of Web Apps conference in Miami, Y-Combinator-backed 280 North announced Atlas, a drag-and-drop visual editor for building desktop web applications with Cappuccino, 280 North’s Javascript-based framework…Atlas can wrap up iPhone Web Apps like native applications, granting them access to a significant portion of the iPhone API and allowing them to be sold through the App Store.

This lowers the barrier of entry for iPhone development substantially, allowing those with Javascript knowledge to create fully functional applications on the platform without requiring them to learn a whole new language. The same limitations that apply to Javascript apply here, presumably – in other words, don’t expect to be throwing down ultra-rich OpenGL-based 3D games, but mid-range apps (such as Twitter clients, RSS readers, etc.) should be completely doable.

I’ve gathered the significance of this from a developer’s perspective, but I’m curious as to what the testing community thinks, and three questions immediately come to mind:

1. Will this complicate the QA process for these apps, make it easier, or have no affect at all?

2. Besides Twitter clients and RSS readers, what other types of mid-range apps should I expect to see?

3. Will the lower barrier to entry result in lower quality apps, or just the opposite?

Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

For all of you mobile app developers who dream of creating the next hot iPhone, Blackberry or G1 application, a key question to ponder is this:  once you’ve conceived, developed, tested and launched your killer app, how long will it remain killer?

Well, TechCrunch highlights the answer from a recent Pinch Media presentation, and it’s not the cheeriest news for mobile app developers.  It turns out that, for free apps, less than 20% of users return to an app even one day after downloading it.  And by day 30, less than 5% of users are still utilizing the app. And for paid apps, the drop-off is even slightly steeper.  Grim.

The moral of the TechCrunch story is this:

It answers the eternal question that all iPhone developers have: Should my app be free or should I charge for it? For all but the most successful apps, the free route does not make much sense because there is not enough time to recoup the costs of developing the app from advertising.

Free apps tend to be run 6.6 times more often than paid apps, but even with that increased usage, it is not enough to make more money.

Yardley estimates that less than 5 percent of all apps would make more money right now with advertising than charging for paid downloads. His advice: “Unless there is something inherent about the app that screams free, sell it.”

I completely agree with Yardley’s math and logic, but I think there’s another important lesson to be learned here.  He addresses the issue of maximizing revenue, but ignores cost containment as a means to profitability.  Said differently, another powerful driver of profitablity is the cost and speed in bringing your mobile application to market.

By finding ways to develop, test and launch mobile apps more quickly and for less money, developers extend the money-making window, enable themselves to launch more apps per year, and decrease their break-even levels.

What do you think — what’s the secret to profitability for the creators of iPhone, Android and Blackberry apps?  Drop a comment and drop some knowledge on us.

Start-ups and entrepreneurs have all seen the news… heard the stories… felt the pinch.  As the financial markets have shuddered and lurched, VCs have tightened their purse strings.

This climate was first given voice when Sequoia’s “R.I.P. Good Times” presentation spread through office parks in the Bay Area, Silicon Alley, Boston and everywhere in between.  The presentation (worth a read, if you haven’t yet seen it) paints a bleak short- and long-term economic picture.

More recently, TechCrunch shares that the National Venture Capitalist Assocation and PriceWaterhouseCoopers reported just how much the VC market tightened in Q4.  The total amount of VC financing in the 4th quarter was down 33 percent year-over-year, and down 26 percent quarter-over-quarter.  For the entire 2008 year, the total amount VCs invested into startups was $28.3 billion, down 8 percent.

VentureBeat recently highlighted a survey of 400+ VCs that reaffirmed just how slow 2009 will be for VCs — and how tough it may be for start-ups to raise fresh capital.  The good news?  These same VCs believe that markets will loosen in 2010, and anticipate they will actually fund the same number of deals in ’09 as they did in ’08 (albeit at a smaller average deal size).

A majority of the VCs said they expect to fund the same number of companies or more, so the bigger effect may not be on the number of fundings, but on the amount each startup can raise.

This means that some start-ups will find funding, although the average deal size and valuation will almost certainly be lower.  In these difficult times, it’s more critical for entrepreneurs to control their costs — particulary their fixed cost structure — and still find ways to innovate.  Getting new products and versions to market more quickly, and outrunning the competition (who have their own concerns and challenges, by the way) will be more important than ever.

How is your firm striking the balance between cost containment and getting groundbreaking apps to market quickly?  Drop us a comment and share your thoughts.