Calcutta, Feb. 5: Need online tickets and cannot log in? Your page refuses to open just when you thought you have found the perfect gift online?

Don’t worry. This will soon become a thing of the past as India is set to become one of the leaders in the software testing market, which according to a Gartner survey is expected to touch $700 million to $1 billion by 2007.

As the scope for e-commerce is increasing in the country, software testing is assuming great importance for Indian companies.

A recent research by the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) suggests that the value of business-to-business and e-commerce transaction is set to grow from Rs 1,180 crore to Rs 2,300 crore between 2005-06 and 2006-07, a growth of 95 per cent.

“We specialise globally in providing automated software testing tools. There is greater awareness among Indian software companies on software testing. The industries could be as diverse as hospitality and aviation to manufacturing or FMCG items,” said T. Srinivasan, managing director of Mercury India.

“In such a scenario, especially with the boom in online ticketing, to ensure that the system is well equipped to handle adequate traffic, testing the software assumes critical importance to the success of the venture,” Srinivasan added.

The world software testing market is estimated to be at $13billion according to a Gartner study, while the outsourced testing market is worth $6.1 billion, out of which India has the potential to garner 70 per cent of the market share.

A lot of Japanese, European and American companies are offshoring their testing to their own subsidiaries or to independent software testing providers (ISTPs).

Srinivasan pointed out that the industry is split between the IT biggies, like Cognizant, TCS and Wipro who have their testing divisions, and the ISTPs. There are 10 ISTPs now with a combined turnover of Rs 200 crore.

“The use of automation tools for software testing is also gaining ground in India which is good news as a Gartner report had illustrated that only 25 per cent of enterprise (big companies) applications use automated testing solutions. The use of such tools would increase as more online transactions would ensure that companies have systems which are error proof as much as possible and can handle requisite numbers,” Srinivasan said.

Testing would also help in demonstrating the business value of IT, aligning it with business priorities and helping in controlling risk and regulatory compliance.

However finding skilled and trained software testing professionals is very difficult and finding trainers is next to impossible

But all that is set to change as software testing is treated as a serious career option by software developers as it gains ground in the country.