| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software, Software testing, Application Lifecycle Management |
| Founded | California 1987 |
| Founder(s) | Adam Kolawa Jon Flower Marc Goroff Larry Lesser |
| Headquarters | Monrovia, CA |
| Key people | Elizabeth Kolawa, CEO Brian Hunt - COO Thomas Chen - President of Parasoft Asia Marek Kucharski - President of Parasoft SA, VP of Development Wayne Ariola - VP of Strategy and Corporate Development Mark Lambert - VP of Professional Services |
| Products | BPEL Maestro, C++test, Concerto, Insure++, Jtest, SOAtest, dotTEST, Mobile Test, Virtualize |
| Revenue | Not disclosed |
| Website | www.parasoft.com |
Parasoft (officially Parasoft Corporation) is an independent software vendor with headquarters in Monrovia, California. It was founded in 1987 by five graduates of the California Institute of Technology[1] who had been working on Caltech Cosmic Cube.[2][3]
For four consecutive years, the company was included in the SD Times 100, which lists 100 companies who have demonstrated leadership in shaping the software development industry.[4] Parasoft CEO Adam Kolawa has been recognized by eWeek as one of the 100 Most Influential People in IT.[5] Parasoft products have received numerous industry awards and recognitions.[6][7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
The company says its objective is to reduce risks associated with developing and evolving applications by addressing application quality concerns such as security, reliability, performance, and compliance. [12]
Parasoft's customers include Bank of America, Boeing, Disney, Ericsson, IBM, Lehman Brothers, Lockheed, Philips Electronics, AXA, Sony, Yahoo, Anheuser-Busch, Bloomberg, Cisco Systems, Freddie Mac, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola. [13]
Contents |
Since 1997, Parasoft has advocated a proactive, preventative approach to software application quality and security. [14] Parasoft CEO Adam Kolawa authored numerous articles on defect prevention, [15] [16] as well as written/co-authored three books advocating defect prevention: Automated Defect Prevention: Best Practices in Software Management, [17] Bulletproofing Web Applications, [18] and The Next Leap in Productivity: What Top Managers Really Need to Know about Information Technology. [19]
The Automated Defect Prevention book, which Adam Kolawa co-authored with Dorota Huizinga, promotes the "Automated Defect Prevention" methodology. This methodology strives to ensure that quality software can be produced consistently and efficiently. [20]
Parasoft develops automated defect prevention technologies that support the Automated Defect Prevention methodology developed by Adam Kolawa.[21] These technologies automate a number of defect prevention practices for Java, C and C++, and .NET. The static code analysis practice identifies coding issues that lead to security, reliability, performance, and maintainability issues later on. In 1996, Parasoft submitted a patent application for their rule-based static code analysis. [22] Since then, the original static analysis technology has been extended to include security static analysis, data flow analysis, and software metrics. [23] [24] The unit testing and component testing practices involve verifying that individual units of the programming work correctly in isolation from the rest of the application. In 1996, Parasoft submitted patent applications for technology that automatically generates unit test cases. [25] Since then, the original unit testing technology has been extended to include code coverage analysis and regression testing. [21] The peer code review practice involves manually inspecting source code to examine algorithms, review design, and search for subtle errors that automated tools cannot detect. Although the peer inspection itself cannot be automated, peer code reviews preparation, notification, and tracking can be automated.[26]
For the SOA and enterprise IT environments, Parasoft technologies automate practices such as integration testing, system testing, load testing, and penetration testing. [27] These practices, combined with policy enforcement, prevent security, reliability, and compliance problems that could occur with service or component-based architectures (including Service-Oriented Architectures, Web applications, and ESBs). Service emulation or virtualization, which is another common practice in such environments, is also automated by Parasoft technologies.[28] Parasoft's service and SOA quality technology was first developed in 2002. [29]
Parasoft also develops memory error detection technology that finds run-time errors in C and C++ programs. [30] Patents were submitted for this technology in 1995 and 1996. [31] [32]
For software development management (e.g., Application lifecycle management), Parasoft technologies, combined with processes, and infrastructure, are used to plan, track progress, and optimize software projects.[21]
Parasoft’s partners in the SOA quality market include Amberpoint[33] and Software AG.[34] In the embedded development market, Parasoft partners with Wind River Systems[35]and ARM Limited.[36] In addition, Parasoft has partnerships with AccuRev,[37] Hewlett-Packard,[38] IBM,[39] and MKS Inc..[40]
Parasoft competes with organizations such as Borland (ALM), CA, Inc. (SOA), Coverity (static analysis), Hewlett-Packard (SOA), IBM (memory error detection, SOA, ALM), Itko (SOA), Klocwork (static analysis), Microsoft (.NET quality), Mindreef (SOA), and Serena Software (ALM) . [41] [42]