"Automated Software Quality (ASQ) experienced abnormally high double-digit growth of 19.2% in 2007, beyond the levels of both 2006 and 2005. IDC forecasts continuing growth in the ASQ segment, with expected revenue approaching the $2.5 billion mark by 2012." - IDC Group (www.idc.com) "In the face of a chaotic and unpredictable global economy and constrained IT staffing, demand will remain for ASQ tools throughout our forecast period, though at significantly lower growth rates than earlier expected, and further market and product evolution will occur as larger vendors deliver more complete IT life-cycle management (ITLM) solutions with attractive licensing models as consolidation continues".

Therefore, "To Automate or not to Automate" is not the question any more. It is "How to automate?" This paper highlights about "Hybrid Test Automation Framework" based on HP Test Automation Tool - Quick Test Professional (QTP).

Mr. Kumar Saurabh is QA Technical SME at Birlasoft India Limited, Noida. He is an innovative Test Engineer with good experience in Designing, implementation of testing/test automation and having more than 6 years of IT experience. He has extensive experience in implementing Test Automation Framework using HP suite of product mainly Quick test Professional. He has worked in Hewlett Packard, India, prior to joining Birlasoft, and has a rich experience in testing and test automation using QTP (QTP 9.5, QTP 8.0 etc.). Experience in the information technology industry has coupled with extensive experience in managing client relations at all levels, including senior executives. He has been involved in several successful mission critical projects spanning CRM, Telecom and Enterprise Servers, Logistics and Media domains.

Mr. Saroj Patnaik (Saroj.patnaik@birlasoft.com) is Testing CoE Technical SME at Birlasoft India Limited, Noida. He is a Certified Project Management Professional PMP® and PRINCE2® having more than 15 years of extensive experience in project and program management with implementation of Test Automation Framework using HP and IBM suite of product. Some of his key implementation includes Validation Accelerator with e-signature for FDA compliance, End-to-End SOA testing using HP-STM & Soap UI Data Pro and Birlasoft Reusable Automated Testing Framework (RATF®).