One event that didn’t happen at CeBIT didn’t happen again at UniForum – the launch of the PowerOpen Association’s conformance test tools. The announcement was cancelled at both events. What happened? Apparently the Association had hoped to accompany the formal announcement of the verification schemes with the names of the first companies to have their products successfully go through the process. Unfortunately for the Association, the results didn’t come through in time, with the result that the official launch has been delayed until this month. That hasn’t stopped the organisation from actually announcing the prices of the test suites in its in-house journal. The System Verification Test Suite, used by hardware vendors to check their boxes, costs $20,000 while the Application Conformance Test Suite costs $5,000 per copy per year – Association members get discounts. As previously reported, the Association is aiming to generate half of its revenue this year from the sale of conformance test tools.
