Testing times are here (and that's good news!)

These are testing times for the Indian infotech industry. In the US, the new Trump administration, seems bent on measures that will make it more difficult than ever, to do business with that country. In Europe, Brexit, followed by a wave of refugee-fueled, parochial and anti-outsider sentiment, in other EY nations, seems poised to do likewise. Faced with these global uncertainties, even the always-upbeat NASSCOM, has taken the unusual step last week, of postponing its annual report on the prospects of the Indian IT services industry.

While the big Indian players, the so-called bellwethers are rethinking strategies and recallibrating goals, it is 'jaisey ththey' or business as usual, in one neck of the tech service woods. Here 'testing times' are good news, because efficient, cost-effective product testing is what they do... for example testing browser-based products, in a variety of device environments to make sure the experience is consistent.

The mobile and tablet landscape today is highly fragmented, spanning many devices across manufacturers and models. Supporting and testing on the maximum number of mobile devices is crucial to any website, but it can be a huge investment of time, effort, and money. Therefore, it is critical to choose the ideal list of devices to test your mobile websites.These must be carefully selected to provide maximum coverage, considering such parameters as: Market share and popularity, OS and OS versions, Screen sizes, Viewports and resolutions, Upcoming devices, Launch year and Manufacturer.

Developers need to test their website changes across hundreds of combinations of mobile devices and platforms.

The Indian tool, BrowserStack, is a cloud based service that allows web developers to perform these tests quickly and eliminates the need for expensive in-house testing infrastructure. The Mumbai-company of the same name is just 5 years old. Six months after its launch in September 2011, it acquired its first 1000 paying customers. By mid 2014, it had grown to 50 employees Today its customer base had grown a thousand fold to 35,000 and it has already opened offices in San Francisco, US and Dublin, Ireland to take care of burgeoning American and European business. Its users perform 33 million browser tests a month across 130 countries.

And last week BrowserStack, expanded its services by inaugurating a state-of-the-art real device Mobile Data Centre in Dublin, where customers can benefit from a whole range of physical devices.

Says BrowserStack Co-Founder Ritesh Arora: “We are committed to helping our customers solve their most significant problems. Setting up of the real device Mobile Data Center in Dublin expands our existing cloud capacity. This expansion is an important step towards building a best-in-class global testing infrastructure. This will allow us to provide a better experience to our existing customers and support new product launches.”

Adds Tanaz Buhariwalla, Country Director- India, IDA Ireland which supported BrowserStack in setting up its Irish operation: “IDA Ireland is proud to associate with BrowserStack as they activate their plans for global expansion. Ireland has become a location of choice for high-growth Indian companies that are looking to set up in Europe. IDA Ireland-India is happy to partner in the development of early stage companies, such as BrowserStack, as they launch their next phase of expansion in global markets."

BrowserStacks customers include corporates like Twitter, Microsoft, AirBnB and Mastercard.The The expansion in Ireland, is expected to create more than 40 new roles within the next 24-36 months and recruitment is already underway.

Companies like BrowserStack are not waiting for host nations to push them into hiring local talent, they are already doing IT, even as Indian tech industries as a whole adjust to local pressures in global markets.

Keep testing guys!