Original Software Touts Win at 'Big 5' British Bank

Published: January 26, 2010

by Alex Woodie

One of the UK's five biggest banks has selected test automation software specialist Original Software to be on its preferred list of suppliers for "agile" development projects around the world, Original announced last week.

Original did not disclose which of the so-called "Big 5" British banks--a list that includes Barclays, Lloyds, the Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS, and HSBC--recently put Original's products on its list of preferred testing solutions. Only one of those banks appears on Original's client list: HSBC, historically a big AS/400 shop with more than 10,000 developers.

We don't know which bank it is, but we do know that the bank intends to use two Original products, TestDrive and TestDrive-Assist. By assigning these products preferred supplier status, members of the bank's IT department can easily buy the product without going through the full procurement processes, Original says.

The bank wants to use Original products as part of its "agile" development effort, which is the new term for describing the capability for developers to easily adapt to changing needs and to minimize complexity (as if being slow to change and increasing complexity were ever IT goals, as opposed to unintended byproducts).

In particular, TestDrive-Assist would appear to have a special affinity to the idea of agile development. The software, which was launched three years ago to address the reality that test automation tools were too rigid and imposed too many limitations for many shops, allows developers to manually test their software but to include the test results in Original's tracking system.

Another feature that lends itself to the idea of agile development is the capability to graduate manually written test scripts from TestDrive-Assist into fully automated test scripts managed by TestDrive. And once in TestDrive, the scripts can be run repeatedly, even if the underlying application has changed, Original says.

Original has received analyst praise for its hybrid approach to test automation, and the latest customer win at the mysterious Big 5 bank is the latest testament to that work, claims Colin Armitage, Original's CEO.

"The strength of our offering in the agile space is testimony to the fact that we are on the bank's global price list," Armitage states in an announcement. "Our solutions will enable them to reduce the time-to-market for new developments, which is critical for competitive advantage within the banking sector. At the same time, we are able to provide a full audit trail for regulatory compliance."

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