Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Mogoterra heads to market with browser test tool

By Galen Moore

TechStars Boston 2010 graduate Mogoterra Inc.  plans to launch on Thursday its first product, a tool that aims to solve a major pain point for web developers: testing to make sure websites and online applications work well in multiple browsers.

Typically, cross-browser testing involves hours spent entering URLs into different browsers, and checking the results. To test multiple versions of the same browser -– for example, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 –- developers must have a machine dedicated to testing each version.

Mogoterra’s Mogotest tool is designed to put an end to all of that. It does two things typical cross-browser compatibility tools don’t. One, it spiders throughout an entire website, checking each page automatically. Two, it provides running snapshots of what a page will look like in other browsers, including an onion-skin layered view that lets developers fade in and out between browser views.

Boston web developer Brian Cardarella has been using the product as part of a closed beta test Mogoterra launched last month. It’s in a different class from other cross-browser testing tools, he said, adding that other tools are “so unmemorable that I don’t even remember what they’re called.”

JQuery developer John Resig is working on a javascript cross-browser testing tool called TestSwarm for browser maker Mozilla Foundation. It’s currently in an alpha testing phase on the Mozilla Labs experimental site.

Typically, developers have had to build most of a site or application in a reference browser -– such as Apple Inc.’s Safari or Mozilla’s Firefox -- then go back and fix whatever isn’t compatible in other browsers. That changes with Mogotest’s snapshot view, Cardarella said.

Mogotest’s first product, aimed at one-person shops like Cardarella’s and small development teams, sells for a $45 a month subscription. Pricing for larger teams is on a custom quote basis.

Co-founder Kevin Menard conceived the idea while working on a previous startup -- Worcester Polytechnic Institute spinoff Servprise International. The company made a remote restart device for the data center, and came close to $1 million in revenue before it folded in 2009 due to cost pressures. He and co-founder Nick Plante met at Mobicious Inc., the Cambridge-based developer of photo sharing site SnapMyLife, and began working on the project together there.

“I had to oversee our site, where we were selling direct,” Menard said. “We had to support all these different browsers, and obviously that wasn’t a primary concern for business. Any time I spent on that or having engineers work on that meant we weren’t bettering our product.”