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“ReachOut”: A platform for the organization of beta test campaigns

News from June 22, 2020

As part of the European research project ReachOut, a platform for the organization of beta test campaigns for European IT research projects has been created under the project management of Fraunhofer FOKUS. The aim is to ensure the quality and market readiness of new software solutions.

ReachOut invites the European research projects developing software to join the initiative and create their own beta testing campaigns to improve the quality of the project results. Receiving a feedback from external users is a critically important step on the way from a onetime demonstrator to a prototype with a potential to become a product for the market.

The ReachOut project team is glad to present a free operational web platform to run successful beta-testing campaigns. After 18 months of development, the ReachOut Beta Center welcomes new European software to develop their own ecosystem. ReachOut is available for free, not only to the EU-funded research projects but also to all European SMEs and to all open source software builders.

The ReachOut Beta Center can contribute creating market value sooner than expected, as soon as a ready to test beta software is released. Moreover, business users as well as developers can discover new open source software registered on the ReachOut platform. They can give them a try and provide their own feedback to the designers.

With the focus on “the full-stack open source”, ReachOut can improve the quality of new applications, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or mobile services through early user feedback, while providing software properly packaged, along with installation guides, tutorials, and support services.

In order to comply with travel limitations and social distancing, the ReachOut platform can be used at home. The ReachOut team provides guidance and monthly hands-on webinars since February 2020. These online meetings help software developers producing easy to access, deploy, and try beta software, or to customize a questionnaire in order to collect useful feedback from beta testers, for instance.