Apica Unveils US Office, Cloud Offerings

An established load testing and performance monitoring powerhouse in Europe, Stockholm, Sweden-based Apica is entering the U.S. market, opening offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and expanding its cloud portfolio. Apica Watch is a new cloud service that gives customers the ability to monitor their websites from an end user perspective, and the Apica iPhone application provides users with a performance monitoring solution 24/7 from anywhere. The company has also announced a partnership with RightScale, a leader in cloud computing management.

Founded in 2005, Apica has more than 250 customers, including Newsday, PricewaterhouseCoopers, eBay Sweden and Thomas Cook. Its WebExcellence Suite for testing, monitoring and optimizing cloud and mobile applications includes Apica LoadTest, Apica WebPerformance and Apica WebOverload. The company uses Selenium, an open source software testing framework for web applications that lets customers generate, create and run scripts representing complex user scenarios. It takes a cloud-centric approach, which fits in well with its U.S. plans, where it sees a big opportunity for providing cloud testing services.

What Apica is bringing to the market is a company focused on the performance, both pre-production and production, of applications, says Theresa Lanowitz, founder and analyst, Voke. “The performance aspect of applications has traditionally been an afterthought, or many organizations felt they did not have the skills to handle performance. A company dedicated to making performance and monitoring solutions accessible and available to organizations of all sizes and skill levels is critical, especially as applications continue to grow in complexity.”

This is a big undertaking, she says. “Apica’s three-pronged cloud-based approach of load testing, web performance monitoring and the controller to handle back end traffic overloading databases is a clear indication that the company understands overall performance issues, as well as the science and mathematics behind software engineering of applications.”

Lanowitz says this announcement gives the market a clear view of what Apica’s vision for performance solutions is about. “And, because of Apica’s cloud-based model, there are two big benefits to customers. One, the subscription pricing model is simple and easy to understand and budget for. Two, users of the Apica offerings are always on the latest version of the product.”Analyst Jeffrey Kaplan, ThinkStrategies, says the company’s greatest strengths are its integrated suite of cloud performance tools and its installed base of satisfied customers, but it will have to deal with its lack of broad-based brand recognition, especially in the United States. “Apica has an opportunity to leverage its installed base of customers and growing focus on cloud performance to penetrate the [North American] market.”

He believes the combination of the three announcements is what makes it news-worthy. “Apica Watch provides an appealing user interface. The iPhone application makes it more accessible. And, the RightScale partnership extends its interoperability with an increasingly prominent player in the market.”

Audrey Rasmussen, an analyst with Ptak Noel and Associates, agrees that the company faces an uphill battle as an unknown in a market with several incumbent U.S. companies offering load testing and web monitoring services. “Apica has already encountered competition from some of these companies abroad, and they noted that they’ve posted competitive wins against these competitors due to their flat-rate pricing and ease of use. In addition, their partnership strategy could help them to gain footholds in the U.S. market. The services that they provide are delivered over the Internet anyway, so their success in North America is dependent on a good sales model and sales/marketing team in the U.S."

While Rasmussen thinks the two product announcements are important from a customer perspective, as they enhance Apica's services, she views the RightScale partnership as most significant because of Apica's new foray into the U.S. market. “By teaming with a partner and providing complementary services, it provides a viable channel for Apica to break into the U.S. market.”

Overall, she likes the company's three-pronged approach: load testing (so customers can understand where their website’s thresholds are), web monitoring (to see what’s happening in the real world) and overload protection (providing a better way to let web customers know that their website is experiencing unusually heavy traffic, and that they are in the queue to enter the website when it becomes available). “Hopefully customers will be able to avoid the overload situation, but it’s there for customers that experience wide swings in web site traffic.”

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