Arne Henne looks at HP (Mercury Interactive) TestDirector and concludes that this test management tool improves the effectiveness of testing in almost any environment. It incorporates all aspects of the testing--requirements management, planning, scheduling, running tests, defect tracking--into a single browser-based application.

When Robert Sabourin set up a testing lab for a major e-commerce Web-based application, he chose eValid from Software Research, Inc., as the tool for use in functional, performance, and load testing of the application. The product did the job at a very reasonable price, and they were able to find some very important bugs well ahead of their target delivery dates.

Technical Editor Brian Marick proposes organizing a public effort to test a real software product.

Brian Marick argues for using testers at the requirements analysis stage of a project. He says, "While QA is primarily about process, testing—my specialty—is about product. Whatever else a tester might do, she certainly eventually exercises the product with the aim of discovering problems a user might encounter. This essay is about that 'whatever else' the tester does."