uTest acquires Apphance from Polidea

uTest, (Southborough, MA) a leading provider of in-the-wild software testing services, have announced it has acquired mobile app quality tools company, Apphance, from its parent company, Polidea, (Warsaw, Poland) in a seven-figure deal.

uTest acquires all intellectual property related to Apphance as well as engineering talent that will maintain, extend and build new functionality into what will go to market as uTest Apphance, a tool that will complement uTest’s in-the-wild testing services for mobile apps. In return, Polidea receives cash and equity in uTest. This is the first acquisition activity for either firm

Doron Reuveni CEO uTest

“This acquisition is a giant step forward in the growth of uTest,” said Doron Reuveni, CEO of uTest. “By adding Apphance to our in-the-wild testing services, we’ve dramatically increased our value to customers and extended our position as an all-in-one testing solution for mobile developers around the world.”

The roots of the deal can be traced back to 2011, when the two firms first crossed paths at Mobile App World in London. As uTest’s mobile app testing business grew dramatically – 5X in the past 12 months – and the Apphance tool continued to mature, discussions between the two parties evolved, ultimately leading to today’s announcement.

Thousands of brands – including Google, USA Today, Amazon, Virgin, Sony, Box and Trulia – have already adopted uTest to meet the real-world testing needs of their web and mobile apps. With more than 60,000 professional testers in 190 countries, uTest enables companies to test their apps under real-world conditions across OS, browsers, carriers, devices, locations and other criteria. The combination of uTest and Apphance will make it simple to distribute new versions of apps to this community of professional testers, enabling mobile developers to see how their apps work on actual mobile devices across carriers and locations.

Jakub Lipinski, CEO, Polidea

“Apphance was built based on the needs we identified while working on various mobile apps for customers,” added Polidea’s CEO, Jakub Lipinski. “We’re very excited to expand the reach and distribution of this technology. With uTest’s impressive footprint, developers and testers from around the world will now be able to utilize this tool, further ensuring that mobile apps work as designed in the hands of end users.”

uTest Apphance provides an easy-to-use web platform for developers to view crashes, bugs and user feedback. After signing up, a developer adds Apphance code to their mobile app, enabling any device running their app in pre-production or production to integrate with Apphance. This enables developers and testers to see highly detailed diagnostics of each bug or crash, helping them identify the root cause and launch higher quality apps. To showcase the power of Apphance, uTest will be making it available to all developers free of charge for the duration of 2012.

uTest Apphance’s features include:

• Over-the-Air Build Distribution – Developers can distribute new builds over-the-air to real devices for testing purposes
• Crash Reporting – Automated, real-time crash reports are filtered by OS version, device and other parameters; available for pre- and post-launch
• In-App Bug Reporting – Bug reports can be submitted directly from the app; available for pre- and post-launch
• In-App User Feedback – User feedback can be submitted directly from the app, enabling developers to easily spot trends, discover issues and receive new ideas from end users

uTest Apphance currently supports all the leading app platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. Support for HTML5 is coming soon.

“uTest Apphance fills a critical need in the mobile app development ecosystem,” said Nolan Wright, CTO and co-founder of Appcelerator, the leading mobile platform with over 350,000 mobile developers. “Apphance enables a closed loop of communication between developers, testers and users. Coupled with uTest’s endless community of testers, uTest Apphance is an invaluable resource for mobile developers.”

About uTest Apphance

uTest Apphance enables mobile developers to know precisely how their apps are working in the test lab and in the wild. A single library enables over-the-air app distribution, as well as crash reports, in-app bug reports and user feedback. Now developers know precisely what’s working – and not – with their iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Kindle Fire and Nook apps, in both pre-production and production.

And when combined with uTest’s in-the-wild testing services, companies can distribute their apps to 60,000+ professional testers from 190 countries around the world. Thousands of companies – from early startups to global enterprises – rely on uTest to put mobile applications through their paces by testing on real devices under real-world conditions.

Source: uTest