“By 2017 the software testing market size will be $34 Billion”, Nelson Hall predicts.
There is a rapid increase in new technologies, internet of things and mobile which impacts the software testing market as well. To meet the increasing demands of digital transformation trends, the software testing market undergoes a transformation. Today testing has changed a lot. It has become more customer-centric rather than product-centric.
The prediction of Gartner says that across the world, the software testing market spending must increase by 14% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) application testing at 15.3% and product testing growing at the rate of 9.1 %.
Here we have discovered each of the emerging software testing and QA trends. Knowing these software testing trends can help enterprises and testing professionals to re-skill and re-strategize themselves:
Emerging Software Testing Trends
1: Open Source Tools Is Future
We have seen a lot of investments in open source in 2015. This all started with Apple making the next version of its programming language, Swift which is open source. It was then followed by Microsoft, taking the same path with .Net platform. For the ultimate long-term success, the need of commercial vendors is increasing which plays a vital part in open source movement. Tools like Selenium and SoapUI will continue to grow. Moving forward with next decade there is a lot of Open source tools in action which more and more organizations will be adopting for better implementation of DevOps, Test Automation, and Agile.
2: Python Will Be Gaining Popularity
For new coders, Python programming language will continue to grow in coming years as it easy to learn. Python always remains the first language of choice as it is human readable and looks like an everyday English. Moreover, more and more manual testers are moving to automated software testing and using such powerful language like Python is a lot easy and fun for learners.
3: Renewed Focus On Security Testing
A study by HP says that 70% of devices in the Internet of Things are prone to security threats which can be data encryption missing, access of user interface without passwords and compromised password requirements. MarketsandMarkets predicts that the global security testing market is expected to grow to $4.96 billion by 2019 from $2.47 billion in 2014. With the advent of new technology, there is wider adoption of innumerous mobile devices and wearables and of course Internet of Things which connects devices. With increase connectivity of information systems and devices, there is subsequent rise on hacking therefore near future will be focusing more on Security Testing.
4: Agile & Continuous Delivery Will Hold Importance
Agile development and continuous delivery help companies to push releases on a more frequent basis. Hence, with the increase in number devices and platforms the chances of errors enhances multi-fold. For catering to the need of an audience, testing tools need to be more developer-friendly and as the delivery cycles continue to get shorter the testing needs to get integrated into the development cycle. Hence, developers will be more involved with the testing process. There might be increasing demand for testers to have more development skills and in this automation is going to play a vital role.
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5: Digital Transformation Is Here To Stay
The year 2015 was known as the year of digital transformation projects, hence companies are attempting to adopt Agile and DevOps practices. The continuous testing strategy will continue to grow and this will support faster development cycles. The year 2016 is shifting more towards exploratory testing and customer drove testing.
6: IoT – An Era Of Connected Devices
Connectivity of computers, smartphones, tablets are much beyond the thought. Today almost all the common day-to-day used devices are connected to each other with various sensors and hence the huge amount of data. IoT has introduced a significant impact on various types of testing as the connectivity is with a larger variety of devices, hence there is an increase number of scenarios and the different operating system has gone much beyond computers, smartphones, and tablets. Today, the most common day-to-day devices are connected with each other and therefore with various sensors they generate a huge amount of data. IoT enforces the use of automation in testing in order to ensure wider code coverage. Both Usability and Performance testing is taken to a new level with IoT. With information being transmitted over the network on a continuous basis hence, security testing becomes very critical with IoT application in order to avoid data breaches and malicious attacks.
7: DevOps Drives Quality Engineering
Concept of DevOps is based on seamless collaboration and integration between departments of IT organization. Testing in such scenario plays a business-critical role as developers are not just involved in code correctness but also in overall quality engineering aspects and testing process. DevOps propels businesses towards greater speeds of quality assurance and deployment thus helping them realize higher returns on investment and faster time to market in a cost-efficient manner.
References: blog.smartbear.com, a1qa.com, blogs.thinksys.com, celtictesting.com, gallop.net
Ajeet Singh
