TestPlant has announced an offer to any UK public sector organisations or businesses with government contracts. The first licence of its eggPlant robotic software testing tool can be acquired at no cost in its first year of use by any new customer whose funding comes from central or local government. According to the company, the announcement is timed as a response to ministers calling for cuts as the new coalition government works to reduce departmental budgets by as much as 25 percent.

Thorough testing of software systems is crucial, particularly if these systems are deployed in information databases, by security agencies or in defence and aerospace applications. Bugs cost money and potentially lives. And that testing process represents some 30 percent of commercial software development costs and as much as an astonishing 70 percent in defence environments. With testing being traditionally a manual process, it is tedious, error-prone, time consuming, inefficient and costly. Just as the car industry adopted assembly line robots and then built better cars, managers of software development programmes can build better software, reduce delivery times and save money by automating testing according to eggPlant.

“We have a radically new approach and we’ve been very successful in exporting eggPlant around the world to some of the biggest and brightest technology companies, such as Cisco and Google. Here in the UK, the BBC and NATS are already users. But not-so-early adopters need a nudge and we’re creative, confident and willing to ‘prime the pump’ with this offer,” comments eggplant chief executive George Mackintosh. “If eggPlant saves money for these new users, then they’ll want to extend its deployment!”

www.testplant.com