Annual Load Test Market Summary and Analysis

Transcription

1 N e w p o r t G r o u p, I n c. IT Trends Research and Reporting Annual Load Test Market Summary and Analysis Load Testing: The process of analyzing software applications and supporting infrastructures to determine acceptable performance, scalability, capacity and transaction handling capabilities by modeling real-world application usage conditions and executing them against the application and supporting infrastructure under test. INTRODUCTION Analysts: Billie Shea and Kevin Gallagher The year 2000 was an exceptionally strong year of market growth for load testing tools and related services. The worldwide market (inclusive of remote/hosted load testing services) for distributed environments exceeded Newport Group forecasts and reached $359.3 million, up 68 percent from its 1999 level of $214 million, and Numbers In Millions Source: Newport Group, Inc outpacing the previous yearõs percentage growth rate of 55 percent. Newport Group forecasts that the market for automated load testing solutions will continue to grow, but at a slower pace in 2001 given the challenging economic conditions. We believe the market will reach $445.6 million in 2001 and reach nearly $880 million by 2004 (see figure 1, Worldwide Load Testing Market Growth, Distributed Environments, ).

2 As it relates to all products and related services comprising the $823.7 million automated software quality (ASQ) market for distributed environments, the submarket of tools and related services tackling load testing continues to be the most significant driver of ASQ market performance, representing a full 43.6 percent of the total market. This is an increase of 9 percent over last year when the load testing submarket was representative of 35 percent of the overall ASQ market for distributed environments. For purposes of this report, distributed environments include traditional client/server application environments, packaged ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application environments and the full range of Internet, Intranet and extranet application environments. The primary reason behind the strong growth of the load testing market is the continued increase and widespread reliance on Web-based computing environments as business revenue generators and customer service tools. Recent Newport Group research reveals that on average todayõs Global 2000 business attributes 15 percent of bottom line revenue to their Web-enabled business channel and that number is expected to grow to 22 percent by the end of Couple the business importance of Web applications with the complex and diverse nature of these computing environments and it is clear why performance, scalability and overall reliability must be a top priority in support of business operations and growth. Therefore, as the business value of load testing for Web-enabled environments has been proven and recognized, load testing efforts are now more readily supported by business executives as an integral part of the application development, deployment and management process. The result is that load testing solutions aimed at Web-based environments realized overall growth of 114 percent, growing from their 1999 level of $123.5 million to $263.8 million in And, although adoption of load testing solutions outside of the United States accounts for only 29.5 percent of the market revenue in 2000, growth rates for load testing solutions in the International markets outpaced (+79%) growth rates in the United States (+64%). Europe and Asia/Pacific realized the strongest growth internationally. General on-site consulting services for load testing remained very strong throughout the industry, resulting in more widespread market education about successful load testing strategies and techniques. Lastly, no company shined more than marketleader Mercury Interactive, increasing their overall market share for load testing tools and services in distributed environments by an impressive 14 percent, and widening the gap between themselves and everyone else in the load testing tools and services space. This annual market summary report will discuss the state of the market for load testing tools and related services in distributed environments, inclusive of remote/hosted load testing services for the year This report will provide forecasts and market trends as well as highlight market share in distributed environments and its largest subsegment, Web or IP-based environments. Further, load testing offerings from the leading vendors shaping this space will be profiled and some new vendors will be introduced. Vendors in this report range widely in size and vary from vendors providing a wide array of products and services to those that offer focused point solutions in the product or service arena only. COMMENTARY ON MARKET TRENDS The year 2000 was the strongest growth year for load testing solutions to date. Once being a market with only a handful of players, Newport Group recognizes the introduction of many new players over the past 24 months. Along with new players, new approaches to load testing have emerged, most with the intention of driving price for load testing tools down. For example, a hardware-based load-generation appliance approach was recently introduced in addition to networks of peer-to-peer (P2P) architectures for generating traffic over the Web to test IP-based applications. As a result of converging market conditions, the average expenditure for an automated load testing tool in 2000 was $33,000, 33 percent less than the average price of $49,500 in Newport Group believes that a number of market conditions attributed to the decrease. First, there was an increase of vendor competition, with newer vendors leveraging price in competitive situations to win deals. In addition, some vendors chose to blend the use of in-house load testing with outsourced, hosted/remote load testing services. Therefore, end-users tended to purchase tools with lower Virtual User (VU) licenses for testing throughout development and then chose to supplement their in-house testing with hosted/remote services when high volumes of simulated users were required. In 1999, end-users purchased tools with an average license for 600 VUs. In 2000 that number dropped to an average of less than 500. The number of users simulated via hosted/remote load testing services ranged from 1000 to 5000, on average. Another reason for the drop in average price is that a broader range of companies Ð many smaller in size than the market has previously experienced Ð are adopting load testing solutions as they move their business critical applications to the Web. Thus, based on a broader market appeal for load testing solutions and based on the current performance/scalability requirements for a greater number of small to midsize companies, the average VU license has decreased. The 2

3 last factor that may have influenced the decrease, but to a lesser extent, is the challenging economic climate, which caused IT spending to be scrutinized a bit more carefully toward year-end. The core strength of the load testing market still resides with the handful of traditional players, and, of those players, companies offering a wide array of testing products and services that extend beyond load testing, such as test management, functional testing, component testing and performance monitoring and management solutions, realized the strongest growth in We believe they will also be the strongest performers in Mercury Interactive remains the dominant market leader and the one vendor, which all others aim to compete against. Given the steady upward trend in growth, and the clear business recognition for the need and importance of measuring and managing application performance and scalability, we believe the market will sustain some new vendors, but only those with the strongest and most aggressive competitive strategies. These new vendors will thus broaden and further enhance the overall growth potential of the entire market. However, it is important to note that new players in this space have entered a challenging market when going up against strong and highly aggressive traditional players such as market-leader Mercury Interactive. As it stands currently, the top five vendors in the load testing tools and related services space Ð including Mercury Interactive, Rational Software, Compuware Corporation, Segue Software and Empirix Ð account for a full 87 percent of the total revenue in And, consider that toward the end of the year 2000 and into 2001, some shakeout and consolidation among vendors has occurred. For example, service-only performance testing and management vendor isharp closed its doors and Keynote Systems purchased technology assets from Envive Corporation. HOSTED/REMOTE LOAD TESTING SERVICES In 2000, multiple vendors both new and traditional, introduced remote or hosted load testing services, and we watched as these types of services began to take root. By the time the dust settled at the end of the year, hosted/remote load testing services had accounted for slightly less than 3 percent of the overall market. Hosted load testing services leverage the Internet to conduct load tests over the wire. With this model, load tests can be driven from one to many geographic locations around the world to stress a Web application and infrastructure from outside of its firewall. Vendors competing in this space report that on average their customers choose to have user loads driven from three different geographic locations and that it takes an average of four test runs to complete most service engagements. The main benefit to this approach is its ability to test the firewall and ensure that appropriate ISP bandwidth is allocated and Worldwide Load Testing Market Share Distributed Enviroments, 2000 Total $359.3 Million (product & related services, including hosted/remote services) Empirix 6% Rational 11% RadView 3% Segue 7% figure 2 Other 7% Compuware 9% Cyrano 3% Mercury Interactive 54% Source: Newport Group, Inc that routers, switches and peering relationships will support anticipated user loads. A hosted load testing service provides a user-centric perspective of what will typically be experienced in the live environment. Of the newer, hosted load testing services-only vendors, Keynote Systems was the strongest performer with its KeyReadiness service. Of the traditional testing tool companies now enhancing their current offerings with remote/hosted load testing services, Mercury Interactive and Compuware Corporation were the strongest performers, with Mercury Interactive being responsible for better than half of the revenue generated from these new services. True 3

4 Worldwide Load Testing Tool Market Share Distributed Enviroments, 2000 Total $288.7 Million (Product Only) Empirix 7% Rational 11% Segue 7% figure 3 Other 5% Compuware 7% Cyrano 2% testing plays in todayõs technologydriven economy. The worldwide market for product and related services (inclusive of remote/hosted load testing services) for distributed environments reached $359.3 million, up 68 percent from its 1999 level of $214 million. Newport Group defines related services as any consulting services that are sold to an end-user client, which are over and above any services that may be sold as part of the tool purchase. We factor in consulting services provided by the tool vendors and their direct channel partners. RadView 3% to their market leadership position, Mercury Interactive was first-to-market to deliver hosted / remote load testing services. Better than 70 percent of customers for hosted/remote load testing services were new to the discipline of load testing and on average these types of services were able to deliver 3X performance gains and an average of 10 load testingfocused consulting hours to each customer. Newport Group expects that the percentage of companies adopting these services, who are new to load testing, will decrease in 2001 as more IT teams that have load testing products in-house choose to supplement their internal efforts with these types of service offerings. Traditional testing tool companies such as Mercury Interactive, Compuware Corporation and Segue Software should really benefit by leveraging their large base of existing customers. Also noteworthy is that for companies like Mercury Interactive, Compuware Corporation and Empirix that have broad product and service offerings, hosted/remote load testing services work to enhance product sales. On average, 42 percent of customers signing on for hosted/remote services went on to purchase product for inhouse use in HEALTHY INCREASES CONTINUED IN 2000 Sustaining the momentum gained in 1999, healthy increases in load testing revenue spilled into the year The larger than forecasted growth validates the importance load Mercury Interactive 58% Source: Newport Group, Inc Once again, Mercury Interactive retains the leadership position in this market space. In fact, the company significantly strengthened their leadership position in 2000, capturing a full 54 percent of the worldwide market, an impressive 14 percent gain in market share over Rational Software once again captured the second place position with 11 percent market share and Compuware with 9 percent, Segue with 7 percent and Empirix with 6 percent rounded out the top five vendors in this category (see figure 2, Worldwide Load Testing Market Share, Distributed Environments, product and related services, 2000). If we look at market share for distributed environments based on load testing product only, which reached $288.7 million in 2000, Mercury Interactive is again the market leader with 58 percent market share. Rational Software remains in second with 11 percent market share, Empirix, Segue Software and Compuware Corporation share the third place spot, each holding 7 percent market share (see figure 3, Worldwide Load Testing Market Share, Distributed Environments, product only, 2000). Web load testing revenue for products and related services in 2000 totaled $263.8 million, a 114 percent increase over Second to Mercury InteractiveÕs 57 percent market share in this catagory, Segue Software posted the most revenue in the Web load testing space and holds 9 percent market share. Not far behind are Compuware and Empirix sharing third place, each with 8 percent market share, Rational Software with 6 percent and RadView Software with 4 percent (see figure 4, Worldwide Load Testing Market Share, Web Environments, product and related services, 2000). If we look at market share for Web load testing based on product only, which increased 121 percent to reach $216 4

5 million in 2000, Mercury Interactive remains the market leader with a remarkable 63 percent market share. Empirix and Segue share second place in this category, each with 9 percent market share (see figure 5, Worldwide Load Testing Market Share, Web Environments, product only, 2000). For year over year percentage growth in Web environments, Mercury Interactive and Empirix both outpaced the 114 percent growth of the entire market. Mercury Interactive grew revenue in the Web load testing tools and related services space an impressive 169 percent. Empirix was not far behind, growing their overall revenue in the Web space by 164 percent (see figure 6, Market Share Growth for Load Testing, Leading Vendors in Distributed Environments, Web). RadView Software was also nearly on par with overall market growth, increasing their revenues in the Web load testing space by 112 percent. THE INTERNATIONAL EFFECT In 2000, 70.5 percent of the total load testing market resided in the United States. From 1999 to 2000, the United States experienced growth of 64 percent ($154.7M to $253.3M) and the International markets experienced growth of 79 percent ($59.3M to $106M). For individual vendors, Paris, France-based CYRANO recorded the greatest percentage of their total revenue, 47 percent, as being derived from International markets. Compuware followed with 37 percent and Mercury Interactive attributed 30 percent of their total load testing revenues to International markets (see figure 7, Worldwide Load Testing Revenue, Distributed Environments, 2000: U.S. vs. International Markets). VENDOR PROFILES The following sections provide brief summaries on the load testing offerings from leading vendors. Each section begins with one or several company highlights from Compuware Corporation (Farmington Hills, MI) Year 2000 Company Highlight: In 2000, Compuware merged the development labs for their EcoSYSTEMS product line (production monitoring/management) with the development labs for their QACenter product line (application testing). As a result, development initiatives have Worldwide Load Testing Market Share Distributed Enviroments, 2000 Total $263.8 Million (product & related services, including hosted/remote services) Empirix 8% Rational 6% RadView 4% Segue 9% figure 4 Other 6% Compuware 8% Cyrano 2% Mercury Interactive 57% Source: Newport Group, Inc accelerated and tighter integration among the two product suites has occurred at a more rapid pace. This should strengthen their competitive position in For load testing, Compuware offers QACenter Performance Edition. Performance Edition provides a script development workbench consisting of Easyscript modules, which are customized to record application traffic and convert it into editable load testing scripts. Tool support for multiple Web and application server protocols includes HTTP/HTTPS, SSL and digital certificates, FTP, SMTP, POP3, TCP/IP, UDP and LDAP. Tool support for multiple CORBA-based middlewares, specifically Inprise, Visibroker, Iona OrbixWeb and others supported through IIOP as well as support for Microsoft technologies including DCOM, SQL Server and MS Exchange are available. For distributed environment development, Compuware supports Oracle (Oracle SQL*Net and Net8), Sybase (DBLIB and CTLIB) and TUXEDO (6.3 or higher) as well as support for testing enterprise Java and wireless applications. For ERP testing, SAP R/3, Peoplesoft and Oracle implementations can be tested using Compuware solutions. Additionally, Compuware provides support for legacy character-based applications with Telnet VT support and support for custom middleware implementations through Windows Sockets. The load testing technology in the Performance Edition (formally sold individually as QALoad) relies on multi-thread- 5

6 ed virtual users and the use of compiled C scripts to improve throughput, reduce overheads and make effective use of machine resources, thus reducing the amount of hardware needed to run large tests. Performance Edition includes features such as automatic discovery of remote virtual users, automatic configuration and remote downloading of files (data, runtime). Any information or file downloading is done at the beginning of the test to reduce network overheads and avoid impacting the load test itself. Performance Edition can take activity into account, such as throughput rates, connection speeds and user think times. In the QACenter Performance Edition, Compuware has bundled its load testing technology with server analysis agents and file and data management (File-AID). The server analysis agents monitor each tier of the application infrastructure during the load test. The technology, derived from CompuwareÕs production monitoring solution EcoSystems, provides detailed performance data that is automatically correlated to load testing results. The combination of load testing, resource utilization, data management and user experience monitoring tools work to identify the origin of performance problems and then provide the drill-down detail needed to locate and resolve those problems. In September of 2000, Compuware launched its remote load testing service, PointForward. It should be noted that in addition to scalability testing, PointForward includes reliability testing, integrity testing and performance monitoring. Worldwide Load Testing Tool Market Share Web Enviroments, 2000 Total $216.0 Million (Product Only) Empirix 9% Rational 5% Segue 9% figure 5 Other 3% Compuware 6% Cyrano 1% Via the PointForward service, Compuware engineers leverage the QACenter load testing technology to drive loads of hundreds or thousands over the Internet to a customer site and measure performance and scalability. With PointForward, customers can opt to have user loads driven from multiple geographic locations worldwide. Compuware entered the market for distributed functional and load testing in 1996 via the acquisition of UK-based Direct Technologies. They strengthened their position in the ASQ space in 1997 with the acquisition of NuMega Technologies. NuMega offers a tool set aimed at defect management, error detection and code coverage analysis for Windows. A positive byproduct of CompuwareÕs performance solutions is that they can be used in and across multiple environments. To aid customers who may require outsourced services, Compuware maintains a substantial professional services team of 11,000 plus, about 7 percent of which focus on CompuwareÕs performance testing and management solutions for distributed environments. Compuware services for load testing range from traditional on-site consulting to recently added hosted/remote services. With an effective launch of their hosted services in the second half of 2000 and quick uptick in attracting customers, Compuware should continue to grow its remote load testing service, PointForward in Compuware is publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol CPWR. A sample of Compuware clients include Home Depot, IBM, PepsiCo, PlanetRx, Kmart, KohlÕs, Lycos, Lante, CustomTracks, Sandbox.com, Dell UK, Little Tykes, Xactware, the Detroit Newspaper Agency, Campbell Soup, Bell Atlantic, EMC Insurance, Fidelity, Glaxo Welcome, NCR, Mass Mutual, and others. Key Compuware business partners include Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Dell, SAP, Peoplsoft, Baan, Seibel, Citrix, Compaq, Sun, and Hewlett Packard among others. In business since 1973, more information can be viewed at CYRANO (Paris, France) RadView 4% Mercury Interactive 63% Source: Newport Group, Inc Year 2000 Company Highlight: The product is free, the model is open source and service contracts are reasonably priced. In 2000, CYRANO is the one vendor that underwent the most dramatic change to their business model. CYRANO positioned itself as the first testing vendor 6

7 to provide their technology via the open source business model. CYRANO s open source solution offers a core architecture of load testing and production monitoring technology to organizations at no cost. In 2000, CYRANO positioned itself as the first testing vendor to provide their technology via the open source business model. CYRANOÕs open source solution, OpenSTA, offers a core architecture of load testing and production monitoring technology to organizations at no cost. By providing software for Web performance testing (OpenSTA), database performance testing and analysis (Impact and Workbench), database monitoring (Production), network and firewall vulnerability testing (NV e-secure), legacy understanding and testing (Wincap and Test) and strategic consulting and education offerings, CYRANO is an end-to-end quality assurance provider to its customers. CYRANO offers integrated solutions, service and support to companies that want to minimize risk, benchmark Service Level Agreements and enable Capacity Planning for their IT infrastructures. The United States office of CYRANO, based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, continues to feel the effects of re-focusing their sales efforts in the States. As a result, key executive positions have been shifted from the Paris, France headquarters to the United States. This effort coincides with CYRANOÕs goal to focus on their pervious testing strength, a strategy they had moved away from several years back. CYRANO is a public company listed on the EuroNM of the Paris Bourse (Reuters: CYRA.LN, Sicovam 3922). Formed in 1989 and publicly traded since 1998, CYRANO is headquartered in Paris, France, with regional headquarters in the UK and USA. CYRANOÕs Web site address is Empirix (Waltham, MA) Market Share Growth for Load Testing Leading Vendors in Distributed Environments Web % Compuware Corporation -8% Cyrano, Inc Mercury Interactive figure % +29% +164% +54% Rational Software Empirix Segue Software +112% RadView Software Source: Newport Group, Inc among the top five vendors in the market space for load testing solutions. In 2000, the company worked aggressively to expand their testing offerings and added hosted load testing services, component testing tools and performance monitoring services through a partnership with Internet quality measurement firm, Gomez, Inc. Based on their performance and forward-looking company strategies, Empirix should continue to strengthen their competitive position in Empirix (formerly RSW Software) offers e-load as part of its integrated e-test suite. e-test suite handles functional testing with e-tester, load/performance testing with e- Load, production monitoring with e-monitor, advanced test data collection with ServerStats, analysis and reporting with e-reporter and WebReporter, test scheduling/management with e-manager and defect tracking with d-tracker. When used together, they provide end-to-end use of a single set of test assets, which ensures consistency in testing throughout development and deployment of Web applications. The multiple components that comprise e-test suite are tightly integrated and work well together; they also can be licensed and used on a stand-alone basis. Year 2000 Company Highlight: Empirix became an independent company by merging RSW Software with Hammer Technologies (testing in the communications space), two former independent business units of Teradyne. The combined technologies from each respective company uniquely positions Empirix to serve the testing needs of individual and/or integrated Web and voice applications. Empirix is Requiring no programming, e-load utilizes automaticallygenerated Visual Scripts and supports data-driven user loads for hundreds or thousands of simultaneous virtual users. The e-load Scenario Manager lets you define custom load, stress, and performance scenarios that can be changed on the fly using different sets of scripts to represent a range of business functions. e-load leverages TrueLoad technology, 7

8 Other Segue Empirix Rational RadView Worldwide Load Testing Revenue Distributed Environments, 2000 United States ($253.3M) vs. International Markets ($106M) figure 7 International U.S. e-load ServerStats collects metrics that are tied to specific components of a complete Web infrastructure. The ServerStat component of e-test suite supports collection of metrics from multiple Web, application and database server environments running multiple operating systems. It supports the collection of Web server metrics from ISAPIbased, NSAPI-based, APACHE, NTSE, as well as all UNIX (including Linux) and Microsoft Windows platforms. In addition, ServerStats supports the collection of application server metrics from BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, COM+, Sun/AOL/Netscape iplanet, Oracle, BroadVision, Allaire Cold Fusion, ATG Dynamo, SunÕs NetDynamics, AppleÕs WebObjects, and Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP). Database support includes Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. Mercury Cyrano Compuware From 1999 to 2000, the U.S experienced 64% growth for load testing solutions ($154.7M to $253.3M) and the International markets experienced growth of 79% ($59.3M to $106M) ness functions. e-load leverages TrueLoad technology, an object-level recording method that insulates the user from minor changes to the HTTP, to emulate real-world browser traffic. This tool is sophisticated in its ability to handle frequently changing session IDs typical in Web environments, therefore not producing a host of false test failures that can happen as a result of continuously changing site information for dynamic web applications. e-load also features automatic content validation so the user is assured that the application under test provides the correct responses under load, without the need for additional programming. e-load allows QA engineers to review snapshots of virtual user interaction with the application in real time to aid in identifying and correcting any scalability problems. e-load supports real-time graphing and reporting. Test reporting capabilities (common for e-load and e-monitor) allow the tool user to layer and view multiple test runs on a single graph. Reports that display server-side metrics in correlation with client-side metrics are available, along with the ability to export test results into Excel style graphs and charts using a reporting wizard. Summary reports are automatically generated in HTML format. In Millions Source: Newport Group, Inc Powered by e-load, e-loadexpert is a hosted testing service designed to verify the performance of Web applications over the Internet. Customers of e- LoadExpert can watch test engineers from Empirix design and execute their load tests online and then work with them to interpret and analyze results. Empirix launched the eloadexpert service in October of For load testing at the component level, Empirix offers Bean-test, a browser-based tool for testing the scalability and integrity of middle-tier applications built with Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB). Optimized for leading application servers from BEA (WebLogic), IBM (WebSphere) and Bluestone, Bean-test generates multi-threaded Java test clients to measure performance, scalability and functionality of EJB component-based applications as workloads increase. Most recently, Empirix announced FirstACT, an application component testing solution that performs load and functional testing of Web Services and COM components. Also from Empirix, the Hammer IT Contact Center Test System is an automated solution for acceptance testing and load testing of contact center applications and systems. The Hammer IT Contact Center Test System works by generating thousands of test calls for CTI, IVR and ACD installations. Hammer IT duplicates realistic customer calling conditions, dialing into the systems under test, entering account numbers and PIN numbers, listening to ensure that the right prompt responses are being played, and then measuring system and network response times throughout each test call. If response times exceed pre-established thresholds or if any other problem is found, the Hammer IT logs the error and its location in the call flow to a database and displays test results in real-time. Hammer IT provides standard alerting capabilities. 8

9 A sample of Empirix customers includes American Airlines, British Telecom, Countrywide, Sprint PCS, MCI Worldcom, Computer Sciences Corporation, Peoples Bank, Manulife Financial, H&R Block, and Royal Bank of Canada. Partners include BEA, ATG, BroadVision, Compaq, Microsoft, PWC, AnswerThink and Sapient, among others. Empirix is the combination of RSW Software and Hammer Technologies, both formerly units of Teradyne, Inc., which became an independent company in December, More information can be viewed at Mercury Interactive (Sunnyvale, CA) Year 2000 Company Highlight: Mercury Interactive significantly increased their market share for load testing, gaining 14 percent in distributed environment testing. The company was added to the NASDAQ-100 index and cemented a strategic partnership with Akamai, a leading provider of distributed application and content delivery services. Mercury Interactive strengthened their performance monitoring/management offerings, part of which included the acquisition of Freshwater Software in Based on their impressive performance, Mercury Interactive continues to shape and dominate this market space. Primarily addressing the testing needs of distributed environments, Mercury InteractiveÕs LoadRunner is an enterprise level load testing tool that measures and predicts system behavior and performance. The tool exercises an entire enterprise infrastructure by emulating thousands of users to isolate problems, optimize performance and accelerate deployment. LoadRunnerÕs Controller acts as a central point of control in order to organize, execute and manage load test scenarios. The Controller executes load tests by running and synchronizing combinations of business processes with multiple types of virtual users concurrently. As the virtual users run and emulate the application clients, the Controller uses its integrated real-time monitors to provide performance information on all parts of the infrastructure under load in order to help isolate the bottlenecks. Performance monitors are available for the most popular web servers, application servers, databases, network components and firewalls. For instance, an enterprise application can be tested with hundreds or thousands of desktop, terminal, Web and Java clients to determine how Java users affect a system as they access an ERP application over the Web. Using LoadRunner, load tests can be run against any server, regardless of platform or geographic location. LoadRunner can be used to load test applications running over many different architectures including Web, Wireless, Streaming, ERP and CRM applications. The toolõs open API allows users and/or third-party vendors to integrate LoadRunner into their environments. Additionally, LoadRunner is integrated with Mercury InteractiveÕs application performance monitoring and management technologies, allowing LoadRunner scripts to be re-used to monitor application performance once an application has been deployed into production. In addition to LoadRunner, Mercury Interactive also offers Astra LoadTest as part of the Astra suite of testing tools. Based on Visual Basic, Astra LoadTest is a lighter Ð and subsequently less expensive Ð load testing tool, requiring less coding for script development and focused on Web applications only. For either tool, load scenarios and results can be saved to Mercury InteractiveÕs TestDirector repository for ongoing scenario reuse, test management and defect tracking. Mercury InteractiveÕs overall market strength has moved companies such as Compaq, Dell, Data General, IBM SPC, IBM AS/400 Benchmark Center, Informix, Intel, HP, Microsoft, Oracle, Peoplesoft, Sequent, Sybase, and Unisys to rely on LoadRunner in their benchmark and competency centers. Further, e-business vendors such as BroadVision, I2, Vignette, CacheFlow, Allaire Corporation, Ariba, Inc., Bluestone Software, Calico Commerce, Inc., Gemstone Systems, Inc., ncipher, Microsoft, SilverStream, Symantec and Vision Software have standardized on LoadRunner in their benchmark and performance centers. LoadRunner offers support for HTTP, XML, SOAP, WAP, i- Mode, CORBA, DCOM, plus many more protocols and technologies. LoadRunnerÕs virtual users can run on several different platforms including Windows NT and 2000, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX and Linux. In addition, Mercury InteractiveÕs LoadRunner includes online performance monitors, allowing identification and isolation of performance problems during the load test. Supported performance monitors are available for Apache, IIS, iplanet, WebLogic, WebSphere, SilverStream, Ariba, ATG Dynamo, Oracle, SQLServer, DB2 and more. Mercury Interactive also offers ActiveTest a hosted-load testing service. ActiveTest is driven by Mercury InteractiveÕs LoadRunner, and is designed to verify the performance of Web applications over the Internet. Leveraging the current hosted infrastructure, the ActiveTest Service can drive transaction load simulations of over 2 million concurrent users or an approximate Web server load of three billion hits per day. ActiveTest results reveal which areas of the application are in need of tuning to achieve better performance. Based on customer observations and summary performance test reports generated by the ActiveTest Service, customers can assess their application weaknesses and make improvements to their systems. 9

10 Publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol MERQ, Mercury Interactive is listed on the Standard and Poor 500 index and the NASDAQ 100. A sample of Mercury InteractiveÕs customers include Bank of America, E*Trade, Gap Inc., Citibank, Barnsandnoble.com, PHH Vehicle Management Services, Sabre Group, Ford Motor Company, COVISINT, Lufthansa, JCrew.com, and Prudential among thousands of others. A sample of Mercury InteractiveÕs partners include Andersen Consulting, Ernst & Young, Microsoft, BEA, iplanet, marchfirst, BroadVision, Allaire, IBM Global Services and many others. In business since 1989, more information can be viewed at RadView Software (Burlington, MA) Year 2000 Company Highlight: RadView Software experienced a respectable growth rate of 112 percent and put aggressive plans in place to expand their product line beyond load and integrity testing. In 2001, they have begun to deliver new testing solutions, specifically a functional testing tool. RadView also opened offices in the UK and Germany and forged partnerships in an effort to extend their international presence to Asia-Pacific. Formally in business since 1997, RadView continues to grow their business due to their focus on testing Web applications. The CompanyÕs cornerstone product, WebLoad, generates virtual user loads of hundreds or thousands to simulate real-world traffic and measure and monitor application performance, scalability and integrity. Test scripts are generated in JavaScript and are customizable, which provides flexibility for a range of simple to complex testing scripts. Likewise, WebLoad requires its user to have experience in JavaScript programming. RadViewÕs differentiator is their focus on combining load testing with application integrity testing coupled with their DOM-centric approach. To accomplish integrity testing, RadView opted to focus their testing approach on the DOM (Distributed Object Model). So in essence, WebLoad focuses on the integrity of data and is not focused on the presentation of the GUI interface. As a reminder, the DOM is a W3C specification that evolved to bridge competing object models from Netscape and Microsoft. The DOM works toward ensuring that Web pages are presented in the same manner, independent of the browser that displays them. In addition to centering their approach to Web testing on the DOM, WebLoad incorporates support for HTTP/HTTPS, Java, ActiveX, WAP, XML, as well as a feature named The overall market for load testing tools and related services in distributed environments reached $359.3 million in 2000 and Newport Group estimates that number will grow to $879.2 million in Cruise Control, which is a predictive tool feature for automatically measuring performance thresholds and determining concurrent usage limits. WebLoad runs on any Microsoft Windows workstation and/or server and on the Linux and Sun Solaris platforms, Solaris version 2.6 or higher. In early 2000, RadView introduced WebLoad Resource Manager. WebLoad Resource Manager is essentially the productization of RadViewÕs vision of bridging the gap in responsibilities between different IT departments, such as development and quality assurance, within an organization. Acting as a central point of administration, WebLoad Resource Manager is able to define and administer testing activities, such as status and scheduling across a single department or an entire enterprise. The high level benefit lies in the fact that the many stages and departments involved in the development life cycle standardize on a single solution to promote an easy exchange of information across departmental and/or geographic lines. The Company raised $37 million through an initial public offering completed in August RadView has more than 1,000 customers worldwide including: Fidelity, American Express, ebay, Anheuser-Busch, Vanguard, Sun Microsystems, Autodesk, and Nortel Networks. More information can be viewed at Rational Software (Cupertino, CA) Year 2000 Company Highlight: Rational Software is among the top five vendors in the load testing space once again for Rational integrated their performance testing software, formerly Rational Suite PerformanceStudio, into the Rational Suite TestStudio in order to offer customers a wide range of testing solutions within a single product suite. Through tools, best practices and services, Rational helps its customers overcome a dilemma they call the software paradox - the need to deliver higher quality software in less time. Rational Suite TestStudio helps companies address the challenges of the e-software paradox by providing an integrated automated software quality (ASQ) solution that tests all dimensions of quality, including functionality, reliability and performance. Rational Suite TestStudio includes a complete set of auto- 10

11 mated testing and defect tracking tools, as well as the Rational Team Unifying Platform, to help teams work more productively by providing common access to project requirements, change requests, test assets, and more. Rational Suite TestStudio is supported by Rational e-development services to help accelerate application development and implementation. Rational Suite TestStudio provides the three levels of diagnostic information needed to isolate the cause of performance bottlenecks by analyzing the business transactions, low-level client calls, and system resources that are causing poor performance. For example, performance tests with Rational Suite TestStudio helps users decide when to tune the back-end server by increasing system memory or CPU speed. It also identifies specific areas of client, middle-tier, or server-side code that are causing performance problems. Tools within Rational Suite TestStudio include the following: Rational Robot for functional testing of the entire application; Rational PureCoverage to identify untested code and provide code-coverage analysis; application profiling; Rational Purify to locate hard-to-find run-time errors; Rational Quantify to pinpoint performance bottlenecks; and Rational TestFactory to detect run-time errors without user assistance and generate optimal scripts for regression testing. With Rational Suite TestStudio, testers are unified with the rest of the team by providing them use of the same tools, methods, data and metrics as used by developers. By being integrated with the Rational Suite Team Unifying Platform, Rational Suite TestStudio helps teams work more productively by providing common access to project requirements, change requests and test assets. Tools within the Rational Team Unifying Platform include Rational TestManager, for managing all test activities and artifacts; Rational Unified Process, providing browseraccessible knowledge prompting the team to use development best practices; Rational RequisitePro to enable teambased requirements management; Rational ClearQuest to deliver integrated defect tracking and change request management; Rational ClearCase LT to control artifacts that evolve over the course of development; and Rational SoDA to automatically generate project documentation. All Rational products are supported by a worldwide service and support organization, which offers professional education and training, customized services and projects, mentoring, consulting and technical support services. Rational Software is publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol RATL. More information can be viewed at Segue Software (Lexington, MA) Year 2000 Company Highlight: Segue Software realized respectable growth for load testing tools and related services. The Company released an updated version of SilkPerformer in December of 2000, enabling it to support Microsoft s DCOM architecture and enhancing the product s security and reporting features. Segue Software offers SilkPerformer, an integrated Web, application and database server testing tool. By simulating high-volumes of Internet and database traffic, SilkPerformer can create realistic models to test Web, client/server, and ERP Load testing solutions account for 43.6% of the overall market for automated software quality (ASQ) solutions in distributed environments. applications. With the toolõs e-business focus, SilkPerformer is designed to provide load testing capabilities across a number of e- business-related technologies including, HTML, XML, Java, JavaScript, ActiveX and browsers. Additionally, SilkPerformer offers support for the many Web and application server protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS, LDAP, SMTP, POP3, FTP, IIOP and WAP, as well as tool support to test streaming media. SilkPerformer leverages its multi-machine controller technology to balance its simulated user loads across any number of load-driving machines, resulting in the ability to conduct very robust load tests. In addition, SilkPerformer combines multiple transaction types and varied user connection speeds to run against the web application, while automatically randomizing user think times. With support for SSL, SilkPerformer is able to conduct secure recording to gauge the impact that securing an e- business system has on overall performance. SilkPerformer utilizes a Results Repository that can store load test information for analysis of performance factors such as scalability, SQL structure execution, Web server throughput, and concurrency. By storing information in the Results Repository, performance factors can be modeled and analyzed to assist in performance and business decisions. Segue offers a range of consulting services from econfidence programs and performance audits to full technical implementations of automated test services, including newly added hosted load testing services. Drawing on over a hundred e-business consulting engagements, SegueÕs econfidence Programs deliver the testing expertise that 11

12 helps companies to define and achieve their specific e-business reliability requirements. SegueÕs econfidence programs include: econfidence Functionality, econfidence Performance and econfidence Production. Consulting customers include Bank of America, British Airways, Chase Manhattan Bank, Citibank, Compaq, Dell, Discover Brokerage, ecircles.com, Fidelity Investments, Hotmail, Infoseek, Morningstar, Netscape, Quote.com, Rueters and Tickets.com among others. Most recently, Segue announced econfidencescale (ecscale). Powered by SilkPerformer, ecscale is an expanded set of hosted load testing services designed to provide performance and scalability assessments of e-business applications. Hosted by Navisite, SegueÕs ecscale service can be delivered via a hosted load testing service or through traditional on-site consultations. In 2000, the market for load testing tools and related services in distributed environments grew 68%. The subsegment of the market focused on the Web realized an increase of 114%. Segue is publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol SEGU. Key Segue clients for SilkPerformer include Fidelity Investments, ebay, Sun Microsystems, Charles Schwab, AOL/Netscape, Dell, State Farm, Merrill Lynch, Sears.com and Telcordia. Key partners include marchfirst, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Razorfish, Systest Labs, StarQuality, BMC Software and IBM Global Services, among others. In business since 1988, more information can be viewed at NEW MARKET ENTRANTS As the market for load testing expands, Newport Group continues to see emerging companies introduce solutions. Some are existing companies that have added load testing to their current offerings. Others are newly formed companies aimed at catering to smaller businesses or touting new approaches to the mass market. What they all have in common is that they are companies trying to capitalize on a growing market. Market share for the following companies is relatively small in comparison to other vendors profiled in this report and therefore falls into the ÒotherÓ category of the market share graphs contained in this report. Atesto Technologies, Inc. (Fremont, CA) During 2000, hosted testing services gained increased acceptance and Atesto Technologies formally entered the automated testing market with a range of Web-focused testing services. Organized as a service suite, Atesto offers hosted testing services in the following areas: Atesto Function Checker: Tests and validates complex, static and dynamic Web applications. Atesto Load Modeler: Facilitates capacity planning and management by measuring the response of Web sites under load conditions from a globally distributed test infrastructure. Atesto Response Watch: Monitors the response of a live Web site over time from the perspective of the end customer. Automated alerts notify site administrators when customizable service level thresholds are compromised. As it relates to the focus of this report, the Atesto Load Testing service utilizes a Web-based interface to manage the performance testing process. The Atesto ScriptRecorder allows automatic generation of scripts that can be directly executed from one-to-any of the fifteen geographic locations where Atesto servers are located. The recorder is a Windows based thin client that captures the sequence of browser clicks constituting a transaction or business process and translates it into a test script. Scripts can be further customized to add functions like checkpoints, user think times and variable specifications for data driven testing. The Atesto Load Test system can recreate complex Web application In 2000, the market for load testing tools and related services grew by 64% in the United States and 79% Internationally. usage scenarios involving multiple types business transactions executing at varying connection speeds, incorporating dynamic session variables, embedded frames, pop-up windows and more. The load test process can also be customized for ramp-up and - cool down patterns. Once the script is written and uploaded to the Atesto servers, load tests can be scheduled and executed (following routine security checks) with hundreds or thousands of virtual users via the Atesto Web site. Real time graphical and tabular report formats provide a detailed view of server and application performance under load conditions. An executive summary report provides a condensed view of the most important test results. Detailed reports are available for response times (for each script, location and access type combination), transaction summaries (passes and failures for each transaction), server metrics (page views, throughput and number of hits), and failure analysis (failure type classification and raw failure data for every script). Detailed data on location and the Internet backbone is also available. 12

13 Understanding that Atesto is new to the automated testing space, company historical performance information is not available. Nonetheless, Atesto recently (April 2001) closed on $15 million of second round financing. As a result of this funding, Atesto plans to explore partnership and growth opportunities. Atesto is privately held, with venture funding from the Sprout Group, Labrador Ventures, Draper Richards, Argus Capital, Wilson Sonsini Law Group and others. Additional information can be found on their Web site at Caw Networks, Inc. (Mountain View, CA) Founded in 1999, Caw Networks bills itself an Internet infrastructure company. Caw Networks builds appliances designed to help users strengthen and scale the Internet. The companyõs WebAvalanche product produces largescale stress tests and executes them against a complete Web application infrastructure. Caw Networks differentiates itself by taking an appliance-based approach to load testing, offering a sophisticated hardware appliance able to generate very high volumes of Web users from a single machine. The WebAvalanche appliance stresses both the application and network layers of a Web application infrastructure simultaneously. Built with best-of-breed hardware, WebAvalanche can be used to build and execute large-scale load tests to define traffic handling capabilities and aid in capacity planning. WebAvalanche is a rack-mounted 4U high hardware device build primarily on Intel-based technologies. The WebAvalanche appliance sits just outside of the web infrastructure, which may consist of routers, firewalls, load balancers, web, application and database servers, etc. The Web Avalanche load generator consists of a high performance micro-kernel operating system, proprietary TCP/IP stack and an optimized network driver. A single WebAvalanche appliance is able to maintain up to 1 million simultaneous connections, simulating in excess of 10,000 HTTP GETs per second. WebAvalanche can serve as a complement to script-based regression testing tools. Regression tools could be leveraged to run limited instances of scripts to test specific features and functions of an application while WebAvalanche stressed that same application under very high loads. This combination would ensure that an applicationõs functional integrity was not compromised under extreme load conditions. Prior to test execution, WebAvalanche provides the functionality for users to define profiles of the types of simulated users that are to be generated. This solution provides flexibility for profiling simulated users at the network level, ensuring that tests do not operate from the assumption of clean LAN traffic only. For example, connection profiles can be specified to vary network latency, packet loss rates and network noise for each simulated user. The fashion in which simulated Of the $359.3 million in overall load test tool and related services revenue for distributed environments, 73.4% or $263.8 million was gained as a result of the need to test Web application environments, a 15% increase over users are to be routed through a web application infrastructure can be specified. With WebAvalanche, simulated web traffic is configured and generated at an aggregate level in contrast to detailed scripting at a per simulated user level, resulting in less overhead in test set-up and script maintenance. Simulated users are drawn from a large number of source IP addresses and user behaviors such as think times between page requests and HTTP aborts can be randomly varied and weighted. WebAvalanche has a graduated load feature that allows that load to be added incrementally to determine the effects on system performance. In addition, WebAvalanche automatically invokes ramp-down intervals upon reaching the test duration limit or if a user manually stops the test. This automatic ramp-down feature is important for monitoring whether connections close appropriately, ensuring the most efficient turnover for computing resources and thus a higher level of system performance. Upon test execution, WebAvalanche cycles through a list of site URLs on a per simulated user basis. As simulated users are generated, the load generator automatically handles both session and persistent-based cookies. WebAvalanche also supports SSL, HTML forms and HTTP POSTS, with upcoming support for distributed mode operation and other protocols. Finally, following test execution detailed reporting per URL and detailed TCP/HTTP analysis is delivered. More information on Caw Networks can be found on their website at Dieselpoint, Inc. (Chicago, IL) As another new entrant, Dieselpoint, Inc., is the creator of Dieseltest, a low cost windows application that simulates hundreds or thousands of users hitting a Web site. Designed to run on client machines, Dieseltest is priced at $99 per CPU. More information, and a demo version designed to support 25 users, is available from their Web site at 13

14 Keynote Systems (San Mateo, CA) Last year, Keynote made its foray into the load testing market with the acquisition of Velogic (May, 2000). As a compliment to KeynoteÕs performance management services, VelogicÕs load testing technology was absorbed into the Keynote offering under the name KeyReadiness. KeyReadiness is a hosted load testing and performance management service. More specifically, KeyReadiness was organized into 3 separate performance levels. KeyReadiness SilverTest is a low cost introductory version of the load testing service. It includes a standard testing plan, a load test of up to 6000 sessions per hour, basic performance reports and returned results within two days. The KeyReadiness GoldTest is more robust, including a more comprehensive test plan, a load test of up to 30,000 sessions per hour, and in-depth reports. Results for this level of service are returned within three to seven days. Lastly, the Key-Readiness Platinum Test provides expanded load testing, geographic profiling of users, up to 60,000 sessions per hour, advanced reporting that includes bottleneck analysis, session information and lost revenue analysis. What is unique about the KeyReadiness service is that it can provide revenue projections vs. load projections to determine lost revenue as a result of performance degradation. It is understood that certain assumptions are made when these tests are designed, however, the projections still offer a unique performance perspective. Recent Keynote headlines (July, 2001) announced the acquisition of Envive Corporation. Envive, based in Mountain View California, was essentially a competitor to Keynote that offered geographically dispersed self-serve load testing services via the Management Service Provider business model. With the acquisition, Keynote changed the name of the Envive service to Test Perspective. Based in San Mateo, California, more information can be found at Parasoft Corporation (Monrovia, CA) The average expenditure for an automated load testing tool was $33,000, down 33% from users to automatically compile, deploy, and test back-end programs and related output pages; prompting users to take advantage of testing early in order to spot critical problems before they become widespread. Integrating WebKing into the Web application development process works to prevent site errors, increase site reliability and improve the efficiency of the Web development process. The Parasoft Web site can be found at softlight technologies, inc. (Hamilton, NJ) Founded in 1999, softlight delivers SiteTools 3.0, a suite of performance testing tools. In addition to a Web site monitoring tool, the SiteTools Suite includes the SiteTools Loader, a performance-testing tool designed to generate load against a Web server by recording and running scripts with any number of simulated users with differing data parameters. Scripts are customizable with the use of an included editor. The SiteTools Loader is comprised of a MainConsole, UserManager, DynamicUser, Recorder and an Editor. The MainConsole allows for the loading and running of tests. All scripts are validated during the load process in order to ensure that any manual editing or script custimization has not affected the validity of the scripts. If any script fails validation, a detailed message is displayed showing the reason, the script file, and the line number of the failure. A test can be stopped at any point and restarted if needed. Once a test is completed, a comprehensive set of reports is created in HTML format. Users can also choose to create a database that collates all user response information for reporting purposes. The UserManager handles the management of all simulated users on a machine. It is responsible for the creation of all users, as either a separate thread or a separate process. Besides user creation, it routes all commands and messages to the appropriate destination. The DynamicUser handles the actual user simulation. It runs all requests, validates the response, and logs all relevant information about the request. Founded in 1987, Parasoft released the load testing functionality of its WebKing 3.0 product in November of 2000 to compliment its error prevention and error detection suite of tools. WebKing is a comprehensive development, testing, and management tool designed specially for dynamic Web site developers and testers. WebKing automatically exposes load, construction, functionality, presentation, content, and design problems and requires no script development. WebKing also provides an infrastructure that allows The average virtual user license for a load testing tool is 469, down 22% from

15 The Recorder allows query scripts to be recorded from user actions performed on a Web site. The recorder scripts can then be edited and saved. Scripts can be recorded in two ways. The first uses the browser to record scripts by way of the actual high-level calls made to the requested URL, links called by redirection, or links called to fill a frame within a frameset. Internal links to images, style sheets or other types of internal links are not recorded and will be parsed out of the returning HTML and called during playback. The second way to record a script involves setting up the recorder to act as a proxy. This will record all HTTP traffic being sent to and from the Web browser and the Web server. The SiteTools Recorder will record HTTP traffic sent by any ActiveX control or JAVA applet residing in the currently displayed page. At this time, HTTP is the only protocol that can be recorded through the proxy recorder. Queries that use HTTPS must be recorded through the Recorder browser. SiteTools 3.0 is packaged and sold in three different ways. Customers can opt for the Developer Edition, which includes a license for one console and 50 virtual users; the Enterprise Edition, which includes a license for one console and unlimited virtual users; or the SiteTools Suite, which includes one license for SiteTools Enterprise Edition and ten licenses of SiteTools Developer Edition. A downloadable trial version of SiteTools, and more information, can be found at Web Performance, Inc. (Research Triangle Park, NC) Load testing solutions account for 35.2% of the overall market for automated testing solutions. WebmasterSolutions (San Diego, CA) WebmasterSolutions provides outsourced monitoring and load testing services. For load testing, WebmasterSolutions offers SiteStress on a subscription-basis. With the SiteStress service, customers have the option to load test up to three times within a 15-day window of engagement. Once tests are complete, WebmasterSolutions engineers will analyze the results to determine what might be causing failures or bottlenecks. Comparing results to similar systems, WebmasterSolutions engineers will then make appropriate recommendations on improving performance or fixing problems. Current clients range from online retailers to online bank. Imformation about WebmasterSolutions and SiteStress can be found at THE BOTTOM LINE As witnessed by market growth projections and the amount of new players entering the market space, the demand for solutions that can define the limits of distributed application infrastructures and work to maintain optimal performance is on the rise. Businesses clearly recognize the value in reducing the risk of failures and poor performance and are increasingly leveraging solutions that deliver them control over the performance, efficiency and growth of their distributed application infrastructures. Clearly the Web and strengthening business focus on electronic commerce is driving market growth, amplifying the requirement to employ solutions that define and continually manage both the integrity and the performance handling capabilities of Web-based application infrastructures. Recognized as a smaller player in the automated testing market, Web Performance Inc. develops and markets Web Performance Trainer, a cross-platform load testing tool. Designed for medium and small development and testing teams, Web Performance Trainer delivers ease of use, while simulating up to 10,000 or more virtual users. It also provides features such as modem bandwidth simulation, load balancing of virtual user engines, form data replacement, SSL, etc. Web Performance Trainer has been shipping since May of 2000, and is available on a trial basis as a download from their site at Businesses are steadily increasing their investments into quality improvement. Newport GroupÕs annual research into Web application integrity, conducted in November/December of 2000, reveals that on average Global 2000 businesses are investing $250,000 into testing tools, $237,500 into the hardware necessary to support an adequate test environment, $36,000 into outsourced testing services and slightly more than $790,000 per year for staff and training. Newport Group expects that these investments will continue and that, specifically, the market for automated load testing solutions will continue to grow, but at a slower pace given continued market expansion. All company names and products mentioned herein are registered trademarks of their respective companies. 15

16 About Newport Group Newport Group is an independent information technology research firm. Founded in 1997, Newport Group was created with the intent and interest to provide detailed research services to major corporations and software vendors that share a vital interest in information technology. Drawing on years of IT research experience, Newport Group concentrates on selective IT research topics and trends. The benefits of this exclusive research approach are passed on to the client base with demonstrated expertise and insight. The information contained in any and all final written materials by Newport Group will be based on accurate reliable information. However, because Newport Group information is gathered through numerous sources, including third parties, we cannot warrant that the final publication is complete and error-free. Market statistics reported in this document are based on Newport Group estimates and analyst opinions. Newport Group disclaims all implied warranties, including, without limitation, warranties of merchantability of fitness for a particular purpose. Newport Group or its affiliates shall have no liability for any direct, incidental, special or consequential damages or lost profits. Copyright 2001 Newport Group, Inc. Reproduction is forbidden unless authorized Additional copies may be obtained by contacting All company names and products mentioned herein are registered trademarks of their respective companies Main Street, P.O. Box 909, Barnstable, Massachusetts Telephone: Fax: