Oregon company PCTEST Corporation is pioneering on-demand computing services.

Oregon company PCTEST Corporation beats out IBM in pioneering on-demand computing services. Computing power and computing services become commodities of the future,

PCTEST Corporation

Contact: Colin Brown

Phone (503) 257 8000 Ext 212
Press Release
Oregon company PCTEST Corporation beats out IBM in pioneering on-demand computing services.
Computing power and computing services become commodities of the future,
Portland, May 15, 2003:

Companies need to reduce costs yet at the same time they need to be reassured that they can access and control resources when they need them, says PCTest spokesman, Colin Brown.

This week, the Portland-based software testing company, PCTest Corporation (www.pctest.com) , announces the delivery of a radical new way of providing flexible computer services power to companies at a fixed price. This new technology, known as QAD (Quality Assurance On Demand) , allows for the distributed outsourcing and control of projects in real-time and, if necessary, on a 24 by 7 basis.

While IBM has announced its intention to become the pioneer in providing on-demand computer services, it stated that it will take ten years to attain that goal. PCTEST, Inc. has attained the goal already.
PCTEST, Inc. is a well-known company that supplies quality assurance engineering services to companies as diverse as Intel, Intuit or 3M.

"We are providing a means for people to outsource their quality assurance efforts in a manageable fashion, while providing full control and communications between the software engineering team on the work interface, the client's management team of software developers, and our project manager who coordinates the efforts at the management interface," says Wasi Wahedi, CEO of PCTEST, Inc.

"How to provide on-demand computer services in an affordable and manageable way has been my dream of the last decade," says Wasi.

"We have spent nearly five years perfecting a technology that is a complete solution for outsourcing distributed projects. It was key to providing the platform necessary to introduce a working technology for on-demand computing," says Wasi.

"The simple idea of on-demand computing in the services area is to share a pool of very experienced staff with many companies by providing guaranteed access, when needed, to these individuals for fulfillment of software and hardware testing projects. In this way we maximize the time of our staff and can provide a very strong level of support for companies."

"We use a combination of both off-shore and on-shore engineers to provide the expert engineering support needed. We always have a good project manager to act as the driver of the project here, who can work closely with the user."
"Our approach allows for the complete dissolution of in-house QA departments. They simply fade away with our approach, " says Wasi.

"We have provided an elegant cost structure that allows for a certain level of skilled manpower to be continually on tap for the client at a much lower cost than providing this skilled expertise on a project-by-project basis," says Wasi. "We allow the down-time of employees to be used on other clients' projects thus reducing costs all-round."

"Of course," says Wasi, "Our approach to this can also be extended to software development and other computer services such as security and medical informatics, for instance. We may go there in the future."

In Business Week this week it was reported that IBM had been deeply interested in expanding the concept of computing on demand under the leadership of its new CEO Samuel J. Palmisano.

"At an Aug. 5 strategy meeting, Palmisano asked his team to draw up a project as epochal as the mainframe computer -- IBM's big bet from 40 years ago. Through the day, the team cobbled together a vision of systems that would alter the very nature of how technology is delivered. IBM would supply computing power as if it were water or electricity. "

"Three months later, in November, IBM's CEO unveiled "e-business on demand." Standing in New York's American Museum of Natural History, not far from the hulking dinosaurs whose fate IBM narrowly skirted, Palmisano vowed to lead a new world of computing. "We have an opportunity to set the agenda in our industry," he says.

The project, which is already gobbling up a third of IBM's $5 billion research and development budget, puts Big Blue in the vanguard of a massive computing shift.

The company starts by helping customers standardize all of their computing needs. Then, in the course of the next 10 years, it will handle growing amounts of this work on its own massive computer grids. And this won't be just techie grunt work. The eventual goal is to imbue these systems with deep industrial expertise so that IBM is not only crunching numbers and dispatching e-mails but also delivering technology that helps companies solve thorny technical problems -- from testing drugs to simulating car crashes. It's a soaring vision. But Palmisano has believers. "Sam is aiming to go where the market's going, not to where it's been," says Cisco Systems Inc. CEO John Chambers."

But PCTEST got there first!

PCTest can be further explored on its website www.PCTest.com. Please call Colin Brown for further details about PCTest or QAD at 1-(503) 257 8000 Ext 212.

•   Release 9 a.m. PST, May 15, 2003