May '03
Moving upstream
AQT has recently entered into the agreement with a major software and hardware vendor to provide test services directly to the code-developers, bypassing internal QA department. Constantly working on our operations procedures we manage to achieve seamless integration and end with the win-win situation when off-shore testing not only cheaper, but also provides better quality and turnaround times in spite of 8 hours time difference between R&D and Testing facilities.

April '03
It's not what it looks like
It's a new market segment that recently started gaining popularity. Many hardware brands now "deface" their products in order to sell them on the OEM market. Such modification are not limited to removing labels and markings on the hardware itself, firmware and software are to be modified as well. Even is modifications could looks "cosmetic", they can (and often do) cause serious defects especially if the product has not been initially designed with OEM distribution in mind. AQT has developed special test packages, which can address common problems with product "defacing" and make sure that nobody will find who is hiding under the mask.

March '03
Yes, you can move it
But who will pick up of bits and pieces lost during transfer? AQT will do it for leading Russian bank. We started the project providing QA support for the migration project initiated by internal R&D department of our customer. AQT engineers has developed unique test strategy and have been busy building automated test model. This model will support functional testing of the banking system which will be ported to new platform (IBM AIX from Wintel) and new database (Oracle from MS SQL).

February '03
Adding some wires
A lot of brainstorming happened during the new project with on of our telco customers. In order to run complete test suite on newly implemented IVR (interactive voice response) solution it was necessary to emulate thousands of simultaneous phone calls and, moreover, track any system failures back to particular call so that the combination on voice menu options which caused the problem could be analyzed. As an answer to this challenge AQT has developed state-of-the-art IVR testing framework [download whitepaper in MS Word format] based on the unique combination of CTI cards, in-house test utilities and commercially available software. The news testing solution has proved itself as the project was successfully launched and works smoothly in the live environment.

January '03
Let's cut the wire
The idea was born long time ago. The products are abundant in the market right now and wireless networks (aka WiFi) are hot. But when it comes to real life the main question your clients will ask you is "Will it work in my office?". Costs of providing customer support for a sophisticated product - should it prove unstable - can be enormous. That's why for the whole January we were busy running scrupulous tests on two models of wireless print servers from one the world leading manufacturer. It took us some time to emulate real office environment to see how products will handle all the interferention generated by microwave in coffee room, bluetooth traffic from your boss'es mobile etc. After the thorough tests in the AQT's wireless lab the manufacturer was able to introduce product to market with confidence.

December '02
X'mas is for X'tra work
For our consulting department. We have won tender for implementation of the QA procedures and supporting software from Rational for one of national banks. Add to that QA Audit project for the leading developer of banking systems in Russia and more consulting work for the one more big national bank (Alfabank). That's why our consulting departments will probably miss their celebration deadlines (but, of course, projects will be completed on time)

November '02
More expansion on telecom market
Current situation in telecom market force operators (whenever they are mobile, land-line or convergent) to concentrate on their processes and software solutions in order to find a way to decrease costs and increase service quality. AQT has introduced new services package"QA Assistance for Telco Operators" (internally dubbed as "vendor battles assistance"). Our consultants will help you to temporary boost your technical resources, so you can sort out all "bottlenecks" with functionality "promised but not delivered" by vendor or to find more creative and cost effective ways to use existing solutions.

New package is already under "trial by fire" in one of three leading mobile operators in Russia.

October '02
AQT acts as Emergency Rescue in Iceland.
One of our senior telco consultants (Kirill Virakhovsky) has been hastily sent to Reykjavik. His management and technical skills was pumped up to maximum when he was busy supporting modifications of the existing processes and hardware configurations. Kirill's huge experience in billing and operations supports system helped our customer (one of the leading mobile operators) to complete full hardware upgrade and massive introduction of new services with interruption their on-going activities. No glitches in customer's bills and services downtime thanks to quality controls process established by our consultant.

September '02
AQT supplies big bank with guinea pigs
It is always wise to choose new technology based on hands-on experience as opposite to results of marketing research. AQT has successfully started the "proof-of-platform" project with one of the big national banks. The project goal is to choose the risk-free migration strategy. Our solution was to port (with collaboration with our sister company www.ardlab.com) key functionality of existing system to two new (and promising) development platforms (IBM and Microsoft). Various comprehensive tests will be executed on prototypes. The performance and reliability metrics as well as recommended migration strategy will help our customer to choose most optimal solution and proceed with the migration.

August '02
It's a MAC time.
May be this is just a coincident, but most of the August projects were MAC related. This platform was living in the shadow of Windows for some time, but now vendors starts develop MAC versions of their product in parallel with their Wintel counter parts. This leads to the demand in Mac-aware testers and this is were AQT has really strong position. "Be aware of all available platforms and do not let personal preferences come in the way real market situation" - was always part of our mission statement and as a result we are ready to test on any harware/OS combination starting from Palm and PocketPC and ending with AS/400

July '02
Breaking through the geographical barriers.
Even the most sophisticated communication means of modern age can not replace good old person-to-person discussion. Following the the growth of our relationships with HP, Amphora has established the permanent presence in Barcelona. Working head-to-head with developers, our SQE will be involved in the project on earlier stages, decreasing the project's lead-in time and overhead it puts on customer