Guy CamposThree-quarters of managers responsible for e-business software
do not stress test it with automated tools, according to the latest
research.
In a survey by Benchmark Research, half of those who did not
test their web sites with automated tools said they did not think
it was critical for their business.
Finding time to choose the right tools was a problem for 14% of
non-users while 12% said they found the tools difficult to use.
As many as a quarter of all those questioned did not even know
what automated testing tools were.
Of those who did not use automated testing tools, 61% said they
had no plans to introduce them in the future.
Miriam Bromnick, a software testing analyst at Ovum, said, "We
are concerned at the slow speed with which many enterprises plan to
introduce automated testing. Those enterprises may not be aware of
the economics, particularly the costs of failure. The risks of not
testing comprehensively are likely to heavily outweigh the
cost."
More than 200 UK businesses were surveyed, each with 200-plus
employees.
It found 14% of respondents had wireless Internet applications
and 13% were planning them for the future. Of those planning mobile
Internet services, 45% intended to use Wap technology, 19% cHTML
and 11% I-mode. A third were undecided about technology.
A third of respondents spent less than 5% of their IT budget on
the Web. Nearly half spent less than 10%.
"This is not a very impressive result for a country with the
declared aim of becoming an e-business leader," said Kevin Francis,
European field market manager at Mercury Interactive, which
commissioned the research.
He said manual testing methods were inadequate to ensure speed
and reliability in a sophisticated e-business Web site.
