Compuware extends user experience testing to mobiles

This week application management and testing player Compuware announced Vantage for Mobile, which it says could help mobile operators increase their own profitability by helping them monitor and enhance the end user experience.Speaking to CBR, Ian

By Jason Stamper Blog

Speaking to CBR, Ian Clarke, director of telecoms at Compuware, said that this is a technology that mobile operators have been seeking for some time: “We have spoken to over 20 operators in the last six months, and they confirmed that they have not solved the problem of gaining visibility into what mobile users are actually seeing,” he said.

“Companies need that visibility if they are to deliver real value and additional services,” added Jerry Witkowicz, Compuware product manager for Vantage for Mobile.

Clarke said that Vantage for Mobile enables mobile operators to quickly see what is hampering end user experience – whether it is the device, the network they are using, the Internet itself or indeed the mobile operators’ applications. “Not all the performance issues are related to the mobile operator necessarily,” said Clarke.

“This technology enables those operators to see where a problem might lie, which is just as important if it is a performance issue that is outside their own scope, like the device or the Internet itself, because that is information they can then share with those customers having difficulties,” Clarke said.

Clarke said that the pricing of the technology is based on how many subscribers a mobile operator has. He claimed that two thirds of those 22 mobile operators that Compuware polled about their mobile user experience monitoring capabilities are “actively engaged” in discussions with a view to buying into the Compuware Vantage for Mobile technology.

Asked whether it is possible that some mobile operators will expose the information provided by Vantage for Mobile to their customers, Witkowicz said, “Absolutely. Many of those mobile operators are wanting to do exactly that as a value added service for subscribers, so we will be enabling them to share some or all of the information gathered by Vantage for Mobile with those subscribers.”