SQS Software Quality Systems to start testing IT systems in Egypt from summer 2008

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New offshore branch in Cairo

Cologne, 25 February 2008

SQS Software Quality Systems has opened a test centre in Cairo, which will initially start with a staff of about 25. Almost all of the test experts based there will also speak fluent German as well as English.

The new offshore location for Europe’s leading consulting house for software quality management and testing is joining the SQS branch in Durban, South Africa, which is already experiencing strong growth. While the consultants and testers in Durban mainly work for customers in the Anglo-Saxon world, the Egyptian office is oriented particularly towards clients in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

“There is a German university in Cairo, and there have been three German-language secondary schools there for decades”, reports Axel Bartram, member of the management of SQS Germany, “which means that about 500 well-educated German-speaking graduates are produced every year.” He says this establishes an outstanding basis for high-quality offshore services. As well as this there is support from the Egyptian Government, which would like to turn the country into an internationally recognised IT location.

All of the new SQS employees in Cairo have IT training and will undergo a trainee programme in software testing. The work they carry out for their clients will primarily comprise verifying technical IT concepts, preparing and performing functional tests and setting up and maintaining environments for test automation. In the medium term SQS is expecting the number of employees in this part of North Africa to rise to three figures.

• SQS Software Quality Systems
  SQS is the leading independent provider of software quality management and testing services in Europe. Based in Cologne, Germany, SQS currently employs more than 850 people in its branches in Europe—including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Ireland—and South Africa. SQS also has a minor stake in an operation in Portugal and a cooperative agreement with a company in Spain.
  SQS is the first German company to have a primary listing on AIM (Alternative Investment Market) in London. SQS completed a secondary listing on the Entry Standard of the Deutsche Börse (German Stock Exchange) in Frankfurt am Main on 2 December 2005.
  With over 4,000 successfully completed projects behind it, SQS has a strong customer base including half of the DAX 30 companies and 30 per cent of the companies in the STOXX 50. They include names like Dresdner Bank, Barclays, Deutsche Telekom, BP, DaimlerChrysler and Airbus, and various other enterprises from all business sectors.