Challenges in Testing of mobile applications

The way we access the net has changed drastically in the past few years. Today a person can manage his documents using Google docs, find the shortest route to that important client meeting using Ovi Maps, sift through e-mails on his Yahoo account using his Opera mini browser, check out what his friends are up to using his Facebook widget, chat with his friends using Meebo; without even being near to his laptop. 

Welcome to the world of Mobile web. Mobile applications today have enabled us to literally have all the information we need at our fingertips. These applications are now integrating with our banks, hospitals and workplaces and are set to become an inseparable part of our lives.

According to Gartner, the worldwide mobile applications market is currently estimated to be around $6.2 billion. In 2013, this market is expected to be around $21.6 billion. It is nobody’s guess that this market has huge untapped potential. For the companies that are involved in creating and testing mobile-based applications, this is the tipping point.

However mobile applications need to be carefully developed and tested, as unlike a computer, the safety infrastructure of a mobile device may not be comparatively impenetrable. Recent doubts regarding Citibank’s Mobile Banking Application’s security are a case in point. Citibank released its mobile application for iPhone in March 2009, using which customers could keep a track of their account. In July 2010, Citibank released an updated version and asked the users to update to this as the earlier version had a security flaw that rendered critical account information vulnerable to attacks. 

For developing a deeper understanding of how mobile applications need to be tested, we need to appreciate the fact that mobile devices is a new market altogether and has its own dedicated concerns. These concerns arise from a host of unique features that make mobile device market different from PC’s. These features are:

Multiplicity of mobile platforms

Multiplicity of mobile platforms is one of the biggest challenges that the industry faces today. The handset manufacturers are using vastly different platforms like Symbian, Memo, Bada, Android, J2ME, Blackberry and Brew. An application needs to be tested on all of them to ensure that it works for everyone. If a company plans to test for only a few operating platforms, it runs the risk of locking out potential customers who might be using other platforms.

Multiplicity of Cell phone Models

Every handset maker offers hundreds of models to its customers. These models have different screen sizes, hardware configurations and image rendering capabilities.  An exhaustive test conducted across these devices is the only way to ensure that an application works on all cell phones. Otherwise, your application would become like one of those mobile anti-viruses that take up so much of memory that a user cannot do anything else, thus defeating the very purpose they were installed for, to let the user surf the net safely. However, an exhaustive test can prove to be a very expensive and time-consuming process. Testing process should focus on careful selection of the sample and ensure that an application delivers optimum performance for all desired configurations of hardware. 

Different Carriers

There are over 400 mobile operators across the world offering GSM, CDMA and some lesser-known local networking standards. Each of these operators, to steer clear of the technicalities, does things in a different way. There are a host of issues involved in enabling an application for use on different carriers. Each network provider has implemented systems that behave slightly differently from the other as they use technology from different vendors. Therefore, an Airtel network is different from a Vodafone one and both require tackling slightly different challenges. Also, network providers insert web proxies to dictate the transfer of information on their system. ‘Walled garden’ approach, where users are allowed to access only a few pre decided websites is an example of data control by the operators. Another technique worth a mention here is trans-coding. Transcoding scales down fixed web content to ensure it fits the mobile phone screens. With different carrier requirements, testing needs to focus on all target carriers and ensure that the application functions on all of them.

Location

Location is another major constraint in testing mobile applications. An application should ensure that it does not eat bandwith or fails to function when signals are low. For e.g. with A-GPS devices, that use cell phone tower triangulation to identify your location, sometimes low signals result in a loss of data. Suddenly a passenger is left wondering where to turn next. Therefore, these applications need to be tested for their capability to work with low signals also. In fact, to completely test a network, the tester needs to be fully connected to the target network. It means that you need to be in China to test on China Mobile and in India to test on BSNL.

Summed up, these challenges make independent testing of mobile applications a complex and expensive affair. However, herein lies the opportunity for today’s entrepreneurs to devise new ways for addressing these issues. Emerging technologies like cloud computing can go a long way in addressing the challenges of testing mobile applications. Creation of tester communities that can test an application for particular geographies can be the next big idea for this industry.

The key is to constantly innovate and identify new business processes that maximize revenues and cut costs without compromising on service requirements.

Investment in open source software set to rise

The open source software market has reached a turning point, with organizations in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland now committing to clear strategies and policies for open source software development. 

According to the findings of a survey released, more than two-thirds of organizations (69 percent) anticipate increased investment in 2010, with more than a third (38 percent) expecting to migrate mission-critical software to open source in the next twelve months.

The survey of 300 large organizations in both the private and public sector found that half of the respondents (50 percent) are fully committed to open source in their business while almost a third (28 percent) say they are experimenting with open source and keeping an open mind to using it.

Furthermore, two-thirds of all respondents (65 percent) noted that they have a fully documented strategic approach for using open source in their business, while another third (32 percent) are developing a strategic plan. Of the organizations using open source, almost nine out of ten (88 percent) will increase their investment in the software in 2010 compared to 2009.

Through both research and work with clients, we can see an increase in demand for open source based on quality, reliability and speed, not just cost savings. This is a significant change from just two years ago when uptake was driven mainly by cost savings. We can expect to see this trend develop as open source continues to evolve and address even more business critical functions.

When it comes to the benefits of open source, the cost was no longer viewed as the key benefit, with respondents focusing instead on other aspects:

* 76 percent of respondents in the UK and US cited quality as a key benefit of open source

* Two-thirds overall (70 percent) cited improved reliability

* Better security/bug fixing was cited by nearly as many (69 percent) across both countries. 

Cost control with open source

Although cost savings are not the primary driver for open source adoption, half of the respondents (50 percent) do cite open source as contributing to an overall lower total cost of ownership.

When asked about the greatest cost savings in open source, the vast majority of organizations surveyed believe they can be made on software maintenance costs (71 percent), initial software development time (33 percent) and initial development costs (33 percent).
Open source software development on the rise but companies still not so open to sharing

The volume of open source software development is set to rise over the next three years. In 2009, 20 percent of software developments were in open source. This is expected to rise marginally to 23 percent in 2010 and to 27 percent by 2013. 

One notable finding, however, is that less than a third (29 percent) are willing to contribute their own solutions back to the community.

Top 10 strategic technologies for 2011

Gartner, Inc. highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2011. The analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, being held through October 21.

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years.   As such, these technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives.

“Companies should factor these top 10 technologies in their strategic planning process by asking key questions and making deliberate decisions about them during the next two years,” said David Cearley, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

“Sometimes the decision will be to do nothing with a particular technology,” said Carl Claunch, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “In other cases, it will be to continue investing in the technology at the current rate. In still other cases, the decision may be to test or more aggressively deploy the technology.”

The top 10 strategic technologies for 2011 include:

Cloud Computing.
Cloud computing services exist along a spectrum from open public to closed private. The next three years will see the delivery of a range of cloud service approaches that fall between these two extremes. Vendors will offer packaged private cloud implementations that deliver the vendor's public cloud service technologies (software and/or hardware) and methodologies (i.e., best practices to build and run the service) in a form that can be implemented inside the consumer's enterprise. Many will also offer management services to remotely manage the cloud service implementation. Gartner expects large enterprises to have a dynamic sourcing team in place by 2012 that is responsible for ongoing cloudsourcing decisions and management.

Mobile Applications and Media Tablets.
Gartner estimates that by the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce providing an ideal environment for the convergence of mobility and the Web. Mobile devices are becoming computers in their own right, with an astounding amount of processing ability and bandwidth. There are already hundreds of thousands of applications for platforms like the Apple iPhone, in spite of the limited market (only for the one platform) and need for unique coding.

The quality of the experience of applications on these devices, which can apply location, motion and other context in their behavior, is leading customers to interact with companies preferentially through mobile devices. This has lead to a race to push out applications as a competitive tool to improve relationships and gain advantage over competitors whose interfaces are purely browser-based.

Social Communications and Collaboration. 
Social media can be divided into: (1) Social networking, social profile management products, such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Friendster as well as social networking analysis (SNA) technologies that employ algorithms to understand and utilize human relationships for the discovery of people and expertise. (2) Social collaboration, technologies, such as wikis, blogs, instant messaging, collaborative office, and crowdsourcing. (3) Social publishing, technologies that assist communities in pooling individual content into a usable and community accessible content repository such as YouTube and flickr. (4) Social feedback - gaining feedback and opinion from the community on specific items as witnessed on YouTube, flickr, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Amazon.  Gartner predicts that by 2016, social technologies will be integrated with most business applications. Companies should bring together their social CRM, internal communications and collaboration, and public social site initiatives into a coordinated strategy.

Video. 
Video is not a new media form, but its use as a standard media type used in non-media companies is expanding rapidly. Technology trends in digital photography, consumer electronics, the web, social software, unified communications, digital and Internet-based television and mobile computing are all reaching critical tipping points that bring video into the mainstream. Over the next three years Gartner believes that video will become a commonplace content type and interaction model for most users, and by 2013, more than 25 percent of the content that workers see in a day will be dominated by pictures, video or audio.

Next Generation Analytics.
Increasing compute capabilities of computers including mobile devices along with improving connectivity are enabling a shift in how businesses support operational decisions. It is becoming possible to run simulations or models to predict the future outcome, rather than to simply provide backward looking data about past interactions, and to do these predictions in real-time to support each individual business action. While this may require significant changes to existing operational and business intelligence infrastructure, the potential exists to unlock significant improvements in business results and other success rates.

Social Analytics.
Social analytics describes the process of measuring, analyzing and interpreting the results of interactions and associations among people, topics and ideas.. These interactions may occur on social software applications used in the workplace, in internally or externally facing communities or on the social web. Social analytics is an umbrella term that includes a number of specialized analysis techniques such as social filtering, social-network analysis, sentiment analysis and social-media analytics. Social network analysis tools are useful for examining social structure and interdependencies as well as the work patterns of individuals, groups or organizations. Social network analysis involves collecting data from multiple sources, identifying relationships, and evaluating the impact, quality or effectiveness of a relationship.

Context-Aware Computing.
Context-aware computing centers on the concept of using information about an end user or object’s environment, activities connections and preferences to improve the quality of interaction with that end user. The end user may be a customer, business partner or employee. A contextually aware system anticipates the user's needs and proactively serves up the most appropriate and customized content, product or service. Gartner predicts that by 2013, more than half of Fortune 500 companies will have context-aware computing initiatives and by 2016, one-third of worldwide mobile consumer marketing will be context-awareness-based.

Storage Class Memory.
Gartner sees huge use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. It also offers a new layer of the storage hierarchy in servers and client computers that has key advantages — space, heat, performance and ruggedness among them. Unlike RAM, the main memory in servers and PCs, flash memory is persistent even when power is removed. In that way, it looks more like disk drives where information is placed and must survive power-downs and reboots. Given the cost premium, simply building solid state disk drives from flash will tie up that valuable space on all the data in a file or entire volume, while a new explicitly addressed layer, not part of the file system, permits targeted placement of only the high-leverage items of information that need to experience the mix of performance and persistence available with flash memory. 

Ubiquitous Computing. 
The work of Mark Weiser and other researchers at Xerox's PARC paints a picture of the coming third wave of computing where computers are invisibly embedded into the world. As computers proliferate and as everyday objects are given the ability to communicate with RFID tags and their successors, networks will approach and surpass the scale that can be managed in traditional centralized ways. This leads to the important trend of imbuing computing systems into operational technology, whether done as calming technology or explicitly managed and integrated with IT. In addition, it gives us important guidance on what to expect with proliferating personal devices, the effect of consumerization on IT decisions, and the necessary capabilities that will be driven by the pressure of rapid inflation in the number of computers for each person.

Fabric-Based Infrastructure and Computers. 
A fabric-based computer is a modular form of computing where a system can be aggregated from separate building-block modules connected over a fabric or switched backplane. In its basic form, a fabric-based computer comprises a separate processor, memory, I/O, and offload modules (GPU, NPU, etc.) that are connected to a switched interconnect and, importantly, the software required to configure and manage the resulting system(s). The fabric-based infrastructure (FBI) model abstracts physical resources — processor cores, network bandwidth and links and storage — into pools of resources that are managed by the Fabric Resource Pool Manager (FRPM), software functionality. The FRPM in turn is driven by the Real Time Infrastructure (RTI) Service Governor software component. An FBI can be supplied by a single vendor or by a group of vendors working closely together, or by an integrator — internal or external.

Farmers Urged To Embrace Technology

African farmers have been urged to use technology to boost food production on the continent. Low levels of agricultural productivity over the years have contributed to the recurrent food shortage that affects over 30 per cent of the population, representing about 260 million people. This problem can be addressed if farmers equip themselves with up-to-date agronomic knowledge, embrace technologies that promote adequate fertilizer application as well as use improved seeds that guarantees high yields. There are plans to boost food production in tropical Africa and Pedro Sanchez, Director of Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment at the Columbia University, New York believes that it is possible to save many hungry people in Africa. Interacting with visiting international journalists at a seminar on ‘Development and poverty reduction’ organized by the German based Capacity building institution- Inwent and the Initiative for Policy Dialogue of the Columbia University, New York, Mr Sanchez, who is also the Director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute of the university, said research in many African countries had shown that the soil lacks nitrogen which could be replenished through prudent use of fertilizers. As a solution, agronomists and soil scientists are collaborating with Google to use the latest technology for a digital soil mapping that would help farmers around the world. The new technology, according to the Director of the African Soils information Services (AfSIS), is developing the digital soil map of the world, which would allow farmers to test the soil to ascertain the level of nitrogen required by their lands through the use of mobile phones. “Just about everywhere in African there are mobile phones and through the soil mapping project, farmers can send questions on how much fertilizer they can apply to the soil and get answers through SMS.” He said lack of a subsidy program, inaccessibility to farm inputs by farmers and poor extension services can be named as the underling factor behind the failure of the continent, which has the potential to produce enough food. “It is essential that the extension services of the agricultural sector are equipped with the needed logistics.” The senior research scholar also dismissed claims that organic farming in Africa was not feasible because of its depleted soil. He noted that it is possible to promote the high yielding hybrid seeds in Africa, explaining that the promotion of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) poses a new threat. In most parts of Africa, Civil Society Organisations and other non-governmental organizations are against the introduction of GMOs, claiming that they pose as a threat to human lives and the environment. “There is no scientific evidence of any damage to human health or the environment, for instance some GMOs like B cotton grown largely in South Africa have positive environmental effect as it reduces pesticide application,” he stated. Two different research bodies in Europe have indicated that there are only simple agronomic problems related to GMOs. “It is not a scientific argument any more but a political argument. Burkina Faso had the political courage and is now a major producer of cotton in West Africa and they are doing well.

Cartoonist maps world of social networking

A cartoonist has created a map which imagines websites as countries and shows their size based on how popular they are.

Randall Munroe, a university graduate from Massachusetts, US, has used his imagined world map to represent the levels of social activity in online communities such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype.

Munroe is best known as the best known as the creator of the cult webcomic xkcd.

The land mass of each mythical country named after a website equates to the popularity of that site, showing effectively how social activity is spread throughout the internet.

Munroe based his Map of Online Communities on statistical information, including website hits and the number of members each community had over the Summer of 2010, reports the Telegraph. The new map is an updated version of a map that Munroe created in 2007.

Email dominates the map and unsurprisingly Facebook features prominently, as does Twitter and Skype.

The map does throw up some surprises. Myspace, once one of the most popular social networking sites, is barely visible, only slightly larger than LinkedIn, a site which aims to connect people through business profiles.

Farmville and Happy Farm sit prominently while YouTube, the video-sharing website, is a good-sized island.

The most surprising inclusion for many is QQ, a Chinese instant messaging service which has more than 100 million users but is virtually unheard of in the west.

Munroe said: "This update map uses size to represent total social activity in a community - that is, how much talking, playing, sharing or other socialising happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best to be consistent."

Why Thought Leadership Rules the B2B World

Top B2B marketers understand two key objectives 1) Building new business and 2) Becoming a thought leader. 56% of B2B marketing executives stated “positioning our company as a thought leader” as their top objective in a recent Economics Intelligence Unit study. In addition, a third of respondents felt thought leadership would be the best way for providers to market services in next 3-5 years.

But why is thought leadership dominating the B2B marketing world? In a world of generating leads and CRM, does the answer to successful B2B marketing lie within the broader control of your company in addition to the collaboration of your marketing and sales forces? Here are some things to consider.

• You are no longer the hunter, you are now being hunted –The web has enabled top executives to gather their own information via references, social networks and search engines, as opposed to tapping the shoulder of the corporate librarian. A Forbes and Google survey shows 64% of senior executives are clicking “search” more than six times a day seeking business information. It wasn’t so long ago when B2B marketers were doing the hunting. But now, thanks to the web, they are instead being hunted. This puts huge importance on being a thought leader. Compelling, thought leadership information that resonates with a niche will increase your digital marketing KPIs ahead of competitors.

• The thought leadership & social media marriage – B2B social media marketing builds brands. It creates momentum for awareness, loyalty and equity while strengthening lead generation efforts. Members of social networks (followers, fans, etc.) are always on the prowl for good, credible information. With 69% of B2B buyers using social networks, the opportunity to share relevant content is evident. B2B buyers and marketers are turning to social media to gather their resources, and while there, looking for industry thought leaders to share information. It’s a transitive property: If social media is dominating B2B marketing, then thought leadership is dominating B2B marketing.

• Customers want to know “how” – Prior to the widespread adoption of social media, public company information mainly consisted of the “what” a company did, and not “how” the company did it. Today, however, customers want to attach a personality to a company and, more importantly, they want to know how companies differ. Thought leadership enables customers to separate companies into the who’s who of the industry. They’re better able to understand a company’s personality and ultimately understand how processes and strategies work.

Thought leadership is continuing to gain momentum and is expected to be a huge driving force of B2B marketing strategies. Understanding thought leadership is the first step in the process. The next step consists of understanding how to effectively and successfully become the thought leader of your industry.

India to spend $2.3 trillion to go green

India to spend $2.3 trillion to boost its energy sector by 2030, which includes a substantial burden for expanding the country's energy basket to include green sources such as solar, wind and nuclear power.

It indents to improve energy efficiency and using clean technology to help Asia's third largest economy balance growth and environmental aims. B.K. Chaturvedi, a member of Planning Commission that charts India's growth path, recently said that being the world's third-worst carbon emitter it is essential for the country to shift to a greener economy.

   
Last year the country set a goal for slowing the growth of its emissions, saying it will try to rein in its 'carbon intensity' the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of GDP by between 20 and 25 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.

Power remains a top priority in terms of increasing energy efficiency and use of renewables as well. India aims to add about 100 gigawatts (Gw) of power generation capacity by early 2017, much of it from coal, despite conceding it would miss by 79 percent an earlier five-year target of adding 78.7 Gw by March 2012. But India will need to keep burning cheaper fossil fuel to expand the reach of electricity to half of its one-billion-plus population without power.

"We should develop this in the context of a two-pronged strategy: The first is improving energy efficiency, and the second is changing the mix of the energy which we consume. Some of it will be towards energy consumption, but a lot of it will go towards improving energy efficiency and improving the composition of energy," he added. The portion of the amount would be spent on making the shift to a green economy in the next two decades is so far not mentioned.