Automated testing has historically been one of the most complicated, yet most valuable, technologies for companies that build software. Automated testing is doubly challenging because teams need to build and maintain a testing environment and on top of that, building tests can require significant technical skill.

Android OS has taken top spot in mobile computing world and Android applications are exploding in number and complexity as more enterprises look to mobile to guide customer interactions and support key business functions.

The mobile phones transaction market generated $25 billion in revenues last year and is expected to soar to $46 billion by 2016. Taking that into consideration, Sauce Labs Inc, the leading provider of cloud-based mobile and web application testing solutions for software developers, announced the availability of its Appium on Sauce mobile application test cloud on the Android OS platform. The company’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) testing cloud application is used to run approximately five million tests each month by some of the largest consumer and enterprise brands including Salesforce.com, BBC and Mozilla.

The open source mobile testing framework Appium provides a unique cloud-based, automated testing platform for mobile web hybrid apps, iOS apps and now native Android apps. The new service provides Android software developers much-needed capabilities for ensuring they can quickly deliver quality software to consumers. The move signals Sauce Labs’ support of the burgeoning open source Android developer community around Appium and Node.js.

“Appium on Sauce solves a big problem at a critical time. Companies are relying more and more on their mobile channels where they have just seconds to prove their worth with a positive user experience and a lot of mobile apps aren’t thoroughly tested, if they’re tested at all,” says Adam Christian, vice president of development at Sauce Labs. “Automated testing in a virtual environment represents the future, and we’re providing it for the mobile ecosystem.”

Image: This is what a tester or developer sees with Appium on Sauce running locally.

The open source Appium project is based on the Node.js platform. It supports multiple programming languages and testing frameworks, support for testing strategies that require direct access to backend resources, and the ability to automate unmodified, release-ready apps. Node.js is based on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine and includes a library of functions for attracting new contributors from among the many developers who know JavaScript. In addition, Appium written in Node.js represents the best course toward ensuring the code continues to evolve as needs change.

The company will demo its Appium on Sauce mobile application test cloud at Google I/O, which will be held May 15-17 in San Francisco.