HP Advances Application Transformation, Business Agility with New Application Quality Solutions

New study shows agility, innovation and cost reduction as top drivers for modernizing applications

PALO ALTO, Calif., HP today announced new application quality offerings to help organizations realize the benefits of application modernization through increased business agility and reduced time to market.

HP Service Test Management 10.5 and the enhanced HP Functional Testing 10.0 advance application modernization by allowing clients to focus their time on application quality while improving the line of sight between development and quality assurance teams.

A recent study(1) conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of HP shows a strong demand for application modernization at the enterprise level. The worldwide study of more than 200 IT business decision makers found that:

* Bloated portfolios and obsolete technologies are stifling business agility and productivity. Eighty percent of IT decision makers cited obsolete and overly complex technology platforms as having significant or critical impact on application development productivity. This was followed by cumbersome software development life cycle processes (76 percent) and difficult to change legacy applications (73 percent).
* Agility, cost reduction and innovation are driving modernization efforts. Fifty-four percent of IT decision makers ranked increased agility as one of the top drivers for modernization plans. Cost reduction (53 percent) and innovation (50 percent) are additional drivers for modernization.
* Modernizing software development life cycle tools and processes yields significant gains. Improving the software development life cycle, including software testing processes, was among the most popular pursuits by organizations surveyed, with 51 percent currently underway with this initiative.

The full study is available at www.hp.com/go/appmod.

New HP solutions help organizations realize benefits of modernization efforts

HP Service Test Management 10.5 helps clients mitigate risk and improve business agility. With increased collaboration between development and quality assurance teams, HP STM 10.5 helps clients improve quality earlier in the testing life cycle, enabling quicker response to development changes. Built on HP Quality Center, HP STM 10.5 also increases testing efficiency as well as overall throughput of application components and shared services.

HP Functional Testing 10.00 ensures application quality to address changing business demands. With the new Web 2.0 Feature Pack and Extensibility Accelerator, HP Functional Testing now provides comprehensive support for dynamic Web 2.0 applications and enables testing any rich internet applications technology with a single product.

“It is critical for us, particularly in the financial industry, to react rapidly to development changes early on in the testing life cycle,” said Mat Gookin, test automation lead, Suntrust Banks Inc. “We look to HP to provide us with flexible technology that keeps application quality performance high and operations cost low, so we can focus on preventing risks and providing value to our end-users.”

The new solutions are part of the HP Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) portfolio, which addresses application quality, performance and security from proposal through production. HP ALM is a key component of HP’s Application Transformation solutions, which help clients assess their application portfolio, select and execute the right modernization strategy, and ensure the effectiveness of its ongoing operations. This ultimately enables clients to manage shifting business demands and drive growth.

HP also offers enterprise-class business services that combine HP software tools and application quality expertise. They include a combination of professional services for testing center-of-excellence design and implementation, along with services delivered through testing centers in the HP Best Shore global delivery network.

Application quality services from HP include managed testing, regression testing with test automation, performance testing, application security testing, Agile Accelerator and testing services in support of SAP® solutions. Leveraging the full power of the HP portfolio – tools, technology, process and services – enables clients to improve agility as well as modernize applications and infrastructure to enable business growth while lowering operating costs.

“To maintain a competitive edge in today’s dynamic IT environment, it is critical for business applications to rapidly support changes without compromising quality or performance,” said Jonathan Rende, vice president and general manager, Business Technology Optimization Applications, Software and Solutions, HP. “HP’s solutions are designed to bridge development and quality assurance demands, allowing clients to accelerate application delivery and drive tangible business results.”
More information on the HP Application Transformation portfolio is available at http://www.hp.com/go/applicationtransformation.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com/.

(1) “Clearing Your Path to Modern Applications and Business Agility,” Forrester Consulting, March 2010.

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