We recently talked with Cognizant’s Salesforce Consulting & Solutions Group (CSG) unit, recently set up in Europe. The unit reflects ongoing investment by Cognizant in its Salesforce capabilities, with a more vertical focus, accommodating Salesforce’s growing product portfolio.   CSG complements the capabilities of Cognizant Interactive and Cognizant Consultin[...]

  Deutsche Telekom (DTAG) recently announced it is moving T-Systems’ communication services activities with enterprise clients (TC division) and Government clients (Classified division) to Telekom Germany. Accordingly, T Systems’ TC and Classified divisions will be folded into Telekom Germany’s B2B Communications division that currently services small businesses and m[...]

  NelsonHall has commented several times about the role of platforms in quality assurance (QA) and how these are playing a central role in functional testing in the world of agile methodologies and continuous testing. Platforms take a best-of-breed approach to software components and rely, by default, on open source software, sometimes including expert functionality from COTS. In th[...]

  Tieto recently announced its intention to acquire EVRY. The company is offering 0.12 Tieto share and NOK 5.28 in cash per EVRY share. EVRY shareholders will receive €0.2bn in cash and 37.5% of Tieto’s capital, valuing EVRY to ~€1.4bn ($1.6bn). Also, Tieto is taking over the net debt of EVRY (NOK 6bn/$0.7bn). The acquisition will give birth to the largest Nordics-he[...]

  In the world of testing services, crowdtesting stands out. While efforts towards automation are accelerating in testing services/quality assurance (QA), the perception that crowdtesting is labor intensive and relies on communities of tens of thousands of testers seems at odds with this. This perception is no longer valid: the crowdtesting industry has changed. Managing crowdtestin[...]

  We recently talked to DXC Technology’s Analytics business line about its work with German premium car OEM BMW, its positioning in autonomous vehicles, and its differentiation strategy. BMW recently provided some light on the dynamics behind its Vision iNEXT autonomous car due to launch in late 2021. Vision iNEXT, BMW’s first autonomous vehicle, will offer Level 3 auton[...]

  This week Capgemini announced its intention to acquire Altran in an all-cash transaction of €14 per share. The €5.0bn transaction, which includes €3.6bn in cash and Altran’s net debt of €1.4bn, provides a 30% premium over the last month. Capgemini has secured the 11% stake from Apax Partners and expects to close the acquisition by the end of 2019. The acq[...]

  NelsonHall has been commenting recently on the future of testing, looking at how AI algorithms and RPA tools fit in the context of QA. This blog takes a different perspective by looking at how one of the tier-one software testing service vendors is approaching its testing of bots and connected devices. With the fast adoption of connected devices, automating testing of consumer or ind[...]

  We recently talked with Sopra Steria about its work and capabilities around big data and analytics. The company has created a Data Science CoE (or Technology Stream in Sopra Steria’s terminology), which brings specialized services and expertise to the various in-country systems integration (SI) business units, focusing on its key accounts and bringing vertical knowledge. Sop[...]

  NelsonHall has commented several times on how vendors have been introducing AI into their QA/software testing activities; for example, to enhance defect analysis and prediction. We have talked less about the use of RPA because it did not seem to bring much innovation on top of what testing software products already offer. Testing software products have been around for over 20 year[...]

  NelsonHall continues to examine the AI activities of major testing service vendors. In the past 18 months, many testing service vendors have expanded their AI capabilities around analytics, making sense of the wealth of data in production logs, defect-related applications, development tools, and in streamed social data. We recently talked with Expleo with regard to its AI-related [...]

  NelsonHall continues to explore how cognitive is reshaping software testing services, and here I look at how Amdocs is automating chatbot testing. The market is shifting from continuous testing to cognitive Over the last year, for many testing services providers, the focus evolved from creating continuous testing platforms (in the context of agile and DevOps adoption), to incor[...]

  In a recent meeting with NIIT Technologies, we discussed how its Data & Analytics offering has been adapting, with a focus on developments around big data and AI. Here are the main talking points. Overcoming tool fragmentation One priority has been NIIT Tech’s Xpress Suite, one of Data & Analytics’ most popular offerings, which seeks to overcome the fragment[...]

We recently had a briefing with Topcoder, an entity acquired by Wipro in 2016. Topcoder is known for its crowdsourcing capabilities and its extensive community network and recognized for the wide range of services it offers across several areas of technology services, with a focus on agile development, digital design, and algorithms/analytics. Topcoder’s four main operational principl[...]

  Software testing services continue to show vitality in their adoption of tools to increase automation. One of the areas in which vendors are investing heavily is AI, not just leveraging AI to increase automation through an analytics approach, but also in testing of AI systems. Back in November 2017, we reported on how Infosys was expanding its testing service portfolio in the areas o[...]

  We recently caught up with Sogeti, a subsidiary of Capgemini, to discuss the use of AI and RPA in software testing. In testing, AI use cases are focusing on making sense of the data generated by testing and from ITSM and production tools. For RPA, adoption of RPA workflows and chatbots in automating testing services has to date been minimal. Continued investment in Cognitive QA[...]

  In our last testing blog on TCS in July 2018, we discussed the work TCS has conducted around UX testing and the introduction of its CX Assurance Platform (CXAP). In this blog, I look at the IP that TCS launched in mid-2018 addressing another feature of the digital world: DevOps and AI. TCS’ Smart QE Platform is built on existing TCS IP, including: NETRA – automat[...]

  We recently caught up with TestingXperts (Tx), a software testing/QA specialist. Tx was set up in 2013 and has presence in Harrisburg, PA, London, and Chandigarh and Hyderabad in India. Revenues of Tx in 2017 were $15m, and its current headcount is 500. The model of the company is based on Indian delivery: currently, around 80% of its personnel are located in India, primarily in H[...]

  We recently talked with Performance Engineering, a horizontal unit within Tech Mahindra and a growth story within the firm’s testing practice: the unit’s headcount has nearly tripled in the last four years to 1.2k. Part of this success relates to changes that Tech Mahindra has made to its service portfolio, which has expanded from a specialized testing offering (perfor[...]

  While Sopra Steria may be known for its execution excellence and its investment in delivery industrialization, it had not really invested in creating accelerators and IP. Then, early last year it launched its Digital Enablers program with accelerators in mind. The company followed a slightly different approach to some of its peers in India, and initially focused on providing its d[...]