“In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death, taxes and Tricentis’ relentless and baseless assaults on OpenText products.” Stephen Davis, 2024.
In early 2021, I wrote a blog asking, Why Are Tricentis Obsessed With Micro Focus? Back then, the Tricentis website was littered with negative references to Micro Focus. They wanted what Micro Focus had, namely, a huge list of loyal, satisfied customers. Pathetic but relatively harmless.
Then, last summer, I wrote a follow-up blog, Same Old Tricentis – Now They’re Obsessed with OpenText. I dug into some of the outrageously false claims they made about OpenText in a podcast.
I reached the logical conclusion that the folks at Tricentis were either:
- Genuinely ignorant about the OpenText tools
- Simply trying to dupe OpenText customers.
Either way, their baseless article was unethical, unprofessional, and potentially libellous.
It’s amateurish hack jobs like this that give companies a bad name. It was a particularly terrible look for a company desperately trying to establish itself as a serious player.
The Latest Tricentis Nonsense
Well, fast forward to spring 2024, and it’s the same old story. Just the other day, I noticed the following nonsense on the Tricentis website…
“For years OpenText (formerly Micro Focus/HP) was the go-to vendor for testing software. The world has now left them behind. Their legacy products were built for yesterday’s software development practices and simply can’t keep pace with today’s speed of change.”
They say a lie is best hidden among truths.
While it is certainly true that the OpenText tools have a long pedigree, and many of them were built for legacy software, this deliberately ignores some very important points:
- The tools mentioned provide ongoing support for legacy software (10-30 years old) that many major organisations continue to rely on and need to test.
- These ‘legacy’ products are grade-A testing tools that have been consistently developed and perfected for years, with new functionality and additional support constantly added. Tools like UFT One, LoadRunner Professional, and Quality Center are class-leading solutions.
- The OpenText test tool suite also contains a number of non-legacy tools specifically for modern applications and development paradigms.
Tricentis Are Deliberately Comparing Apples with Oranges
The Tricentis page in question contains a few downloadable PDFs, which might look like balanced, reasonable arguments at first glance. In truth, they’re using sleight of hand to deliberately mislead their readers by comparing incorrect tools.
As mentioned, the OpenText suite of test tools features many non-legacy products, and Tricentis deliberately avoid mentioning these.
To make a fair, like-for-like comparison, they must mention tools like ValueEdge Quality (Formerly Octane), LoadRunner Cloud, UFT Developer, and UFT Digital Lab. But instead, they compare Tricentis solutions to the legacy OpenText tools.
I was sad enough to scan their PDF documents for Octane, ValueEdge and LoadRunner Cloud. Suffice to say, they weren’t mentioned anywhere.
An Example of Tricentis Comparing the Wrong Tools
A perfect example is when Tricentis compare qTest, an Agile testing solution, with Quality Center, a powerful tool built for waterfall projects. It’s like that old saying: you shouldn’t judge a fish on its ability to fly.
Of course, QC isn’t a better Agile testing tool than a dedicated Agile tool, although the fact that it is even being compared is a testament to its versatility.
However, Tricentis is perfectly aware that OpenText has a class-leading Agile/DevOps testing solution in ValueEdge Quality (Formerly Octane).
And it is ValueEdge Quality, not QC, that is the appropriate tool for comparing with qTest, but Tricentis specifically avoids mentioning it; it doesn’t take a genius to work out why.
I could give you more examples of Tricentis comparing the wrong tools, but I can’t give you a single example of them comparing the appropriate tools. Funny that.
What Else Will Tricentis Lie About?
Yet again, Tricentis has shown a complete lack of integrity, which raises many questions about their morals and ethics, or lack thereof.
Look, I get that all businesses want to grow their revenue streams and expand their market share, and a big part of that is converting your rival’s customers into your customers. But this sort of classless behaviour and attempted manipulation is not the way to go.
If they’re prepared to lie about rival products, can we trust what they say about their own tools?
Let me put on record that I resell the OpenText solutions, so do have a vested interest in promoting the OpenText test tools. That being said, I have over ten thousand professional testers in my network. I speak to hundreds of companies each month that are looking at testing tools. Hardly any of them (I estimate less than 5%) are even considering Tricentis tools.
The Truth Will Out
The software testing community is a tiny, tightly-knit subset of the surprisingly small software sector. We all know each other, or we can usually find a mutual friend. Word spreads quickly, and a reputation for lying can be hard to shake.
Competition is great for every market, and it’s great to see small players try to enter the scene, but come on, Tricentis, you can do better than this.
To all the Tricentis folks reading this, here’s an idea: If you want to win more customers, why not spend more time promoting your own products positively and less time obsessing about OpenText?
Do You Need Test Tools?
The fact is, OpenText test tools are market leaders for a reason—they are incredibly capable and as relevant as they have always been because they are constantly updated.
OpenText invests more in R&D than any other test tool provider. New features are added multiple times a year, application and technology support keeps growing, and they regularly release completely new tools.
If you are looking for test tools, I am here to help and always start by establishing your exact needs so that we can find the perfect solution for you:
- What do you want to achieve?
- What technology do you want to test?
- What other tools are you considering?
Get in touch today and I’ll help you find the right test tool.
