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Always a quality step ahead: imbus – solution partner for software QA and testing – celebrates its 25th anniversary

„Information processing, methods, consulting (German: Beratung) and (German: und) training (German: Schulung): The German terms behind the acronym ‘imbus’ have been defining our portfolio ever since the business creation”, explains board member Tilo Linz. Together with his fellow students Thomas Roßner, Bernd Nossem, Jörg Schulten, Hendrik Rässler and Peter Studtrucker, he launched the software service provider 25 years ago. The entry in the commercial register was made on January 30th 1992.
imbus is an owner-managed and independent solution partner which has completely devoted itself to software QA and testing. In contrast to many other providers, computer scientists make decisions at the top management level of imbus. “That is why, innovations, methods and technology play a crucial role in most of our decisions”, underlines board member Thomas Roßner.
The chosen office premises in 1992 were quite unconventional: The computers were established and connected via LAN in a more than 300 years old and listed half-timbered house in the Franconian village Moehrendorf. “Back then, the IT sector was convinced, that
people were already living in a state of complete digitalization. But it had already just begun”, smiles Tilo Linz.
The number of imbus customers continuously grew and so did the number of industry fields which were served by the QA experts. In the beginning of the 1990s, testing backbone systems for the upcoming GSM mobile network was one of imbus’ main task areas. The high standards from fixed-network telephony were transferred to mobile telephony testing. Later on, imbus also supported the further development to UMTS and then LTE.
Further important customers came from medical technology, railway technology and automotive. As the digitalization progressed, orders from banks and insurance companies, trade, logistics and public administration followed.
Today, more than 260 employees belong to the imbus team. Sites in Munich, Hofheim near Frankfurt, Cologne, Norderstedt near Hamburg and Lehre near Braunschweig were established. Dependencies in China, Tunisia, Kosovo and Canada make the imbus expertise world-wide available today.
There were also two economically turbulent years which proved that imbus can cope with crises successfully, too. One was a crisis in the mobile sector at the end of 2001, the other one the global finance crisis in 2009. Both incidents affected the customers’ testing budget with a certain delay. imbus’ corporate management and employees pulled together: cost-reducing measures were implemented and many employees temporarily reduced their working hours by their own choice, some of them even went on unpaid leave. “In that way, we could cope with a 25% decline in sales in 2002 together with the entire team laying the foundation for our product imbus TestBench”, says board member Bernd Nossem.
“Looking back, the last 25 years were exciting journey in the IT sector. The next 25 years will surely be at least as exciting”, says Tilo Linz. “In a few years, we will live in a completely software-based and connected world. The criticality will rise, too. Software QA experts will be even more demanded. imbus is ready for every test.”