BANGALORE, INDIA: That French companies have fallen behind in entering the field of software quality management is a fact borne out by the complete absence of conferences and seminars in this field in France.

On the contrary, it is enough to look elsewhere in Europe and in India to see how different the testing services market is. For example, the growth in the number of testers at Cognizant Technology Services in India is remarkable. From 200 testers in 2004, they grew to 1000 in 2005 and doubled in number the following year.

Until a few years ago, testing activities were thought to be inherently "outsourceable" due to the perceived low value-addition of the process. But today, companies are more pragmatic when considering the costs and risks of non-conformance to quality standards. When Airbus suffers from an industrial design problem, or when a large bank finds that a single person can be responsible for losses of billions of euros, I cannot help but question the "testability" of these information systems.

Testing means "treating oneself to the luxury" of a guarantee against certain risks - at least within a feasible economic model of software development - as testing has a cost.

4000 testing specialists at Wipro

Ironically, it is because Europeans and Americans considered these fields to be not very technical, and therefore not worth large investments, that we find the most mature teams with the best tools in Bangalore, India. At one of the round table conferences organised during the French President's visit to India, we heard the same views expressed by heads of software services companies in India.

Wipro has 4000 specialised testing engineers while Tata Consulting Services (TCS) gives top priority to quality management of deliverables for growth. "If not, an entire model that is based on confidence will crumble," said the Vice-President of TCS. Quality management of application acceptance procedures is of strategic importance for these companies who want to ensure the longevity of their client-vendor relations.

In India, the market for testing services owes its rapid development to its capacity to provide technical professionals trained on the latest technologies. This is in turn possible because of their well-equipped universities. The paradigm of cost reduction through outsourcing of low value-added processes has transformed into a business model that has fuelled growth for Indian software services companies, especially for those specialised in testing.

Thus, India has become to software, what Asia has been to manufacturing of certain niche products. The term "test factory", is used everywhere to designate the automation of the delivery process for an application.

A winning model which can inspire France

Dassault Systems, which has used its expertise in industrial design to become one of the world's leading software developers, shows us that the know-how coming from French research centres is unique. Our software developers and universities have an ace up their sleeve. Much like in the days of classic industrial manufacturing, it will be of no consequence that the "software manufacture" takes place elsewhere; it will be enough if we know how to harness the digital design "machine tools" of the future.

The market for software testing definitely presents a great potential for those who know how to innovate and to provide Indian players with tools aimed at providing improved quality and increased productivity. Also, it is necessary that these Indian companies be recognised for what they are - a winning model in the field of developing and integrating quality software that should be taken as an example the world over.

(The author is managing director, Smartesting India)