CTC Commences to Provide Automated Service for Mobile Terminal Testing in the Cloud

ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation will explore and provide new services to strengthen the marketing structure for OTT ^*1 and other SNS and content businesses as of this fiscal year. As part of the new services, CTC has concluded a distributor agreement with Sonix Co., Ltd., and as of today we provide the Scirocco Cloud® service for testing developed applications on a browser without arranging for actual mobile terminals. CTC provides warranty and sales services mainly to telecoms carriers, OTT providers and other customers who create their own mobile content and use mobile terminals for testing and operation. The selling price is 225,000 yen per month for 5ID, and 3ID for three months at 98,000 yen per month for a first-time contract.

In 2012, the market scale for smartphone content was 370 billion yen and with the move from feature phones to smartphones, the market scale is expected to increase from 2013. Most test processes for current Android application development use emulators and actual mobile terminals to carry out the testing. This is time-consuming as it is not possible to carry out parallel testing, and there are other issues such as licensing fees, maintenance costs for the software used in the test environment, and personnel costs.

To automate application testing, Scirocco Cloud® creates the test scenario and executes the test scenario on several devices. It is possible to run parallel tests on a maximum of 50 devices, and to reduce testing times by two thirds compared to using actual devices for the test process during development. To run a remotely operated test of an Android device on the cloud from a browser, there is no need to arrange for an actual mobile device, which reduces the cost of terminals. In addition, the testing is not manual, but optimized and automated through the test scenario. Running application tests based on automated test scenarios reduces human error and contributes to improved test quality.

STARTS Publishing Corporation, which operates the OZmall information website, has introduced Scirocco Cloud® from CTC with the aim of reducing the production cost of testing. Since it is possible to carry out parallel automatic tests with this service, the time between development and release is shortened, which facilitates improvements to the quality of the content displayed on apps and websites. Since there is no need to purchase actual devices, costs are also reduced.

By launching this service, CTC provides the IT infrastructure and data centers that OTT businesses previously required when starting up a business. In addition, CTC is now able to provide a more complete service for customers including application development, operational and maintenance support. We will provide the service to telecoms carriers and OTT businesses with a focus on existing customers, and we expect early-stage expansion for the business.
From now on, CTC will explore and provide more services, and focus on initiatives for OTT businesses.