With several vendors on the market, each with strengths in
different areas and features, your needs today may not be the same
a year from now. Although most vendors provide flexible payment
options, there are several other factors to consider to ensure that
you are not "locked in" with a single vendor should you choose to
switch in the future:
Export Content |
If you decide to change testing tools, you'll want to export
existing tests into the new tool so you can evaluate new test
results against your old ones. Make sure the software in question
has the ability to export past content, along with what export
formats are available. This is a key factor to ease of
switching. |
Component Reuse |
Most companies will invest a lot of time creating customized
scripts and API connections. Try to determine how custom tailored
these may need to be to a specific platform so that if these
components need to be rebuilt, you can use them with other vendors.
Retooling existing API connections will reduce the cost of
switching to a new provider in the future. |
Contract Length /
Lock-in |
Choosing the right testing tool is difficult. You often won't
know the limitations of a product until you have already invested a
lot of time configuring and writing scripts. As a result, you'll
want to look at the flexibility, and contract options that each
software provider has as a key evaluation criteria.
|
Overall Switching |
Finally, look at the total investment your company would
require to move away from an existing tool and setup a new one
based on the factors above. |
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