Gomez, Compuware’s Web performance division, has announced new features built into its Web experience management platform, including monitoring on multiple commercial browsers and load testing for mobile and Web apps. These upgrades, which Gomez characterized as “industry firsts,” also enable the user to see an application’s behavior “from the outside-in,” meaning they can experience what an end user would see while using the application.

“People can no longer think of their application as a piece of code that runs from behind the firewall,” said Gomez’s CTO Imad Mouline. “It’s what the end user sees.”

Today’s applications are more composite, being assembled with third-party components, and the browser has become the new point of integration, Mouline said. Thus testing and monitoring from the lab are no longer sufficient, he added.

While using Gomez’s solution for load testing Web and mobile applications, developers can accurately predict what the response time will be for the applications under different loads prior to deployment. The new feature works by generating high-volume load from the cloud and testing the applications under peak traffic.

Using what Gomez calls the “last mile,” developers can see how an end user’s experience is impacted based on different load tests. This solution would indicate bottlenecks in the application’s design, or identify if the problem lies in the operational environment or third-party services, reducing time spent troubleshooting. For load and performance testing of mobile applications, Gomez’s new platform supports the Apple iPhone, RIM’s BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile.

Gomez’s new synthetic Web performance monitoring feature records and executes performance tests using Firefox and Internet Explorer test agents across the Gomez global network and on local PCs. Providing an instant comparison of application performance by browser, this new feature indicates details about overall response times, number of connections and sequences of object downloads. This function enables developers to monitor the application’s overall performance as delivered by Firefox and IE, including each of the browsers’ versions.

Gomez’s new Web Cross Browser testing service also enables companies to test website and application performance across more than 500 combinations of browsers (including Chrome, Firefox, IE and Safari), operating systems, screen sizes, and more than 5,000 mobile devices in Gomez’s global network. This feature offers developers a view into how their applications look across the spectrum.

“Things work differently from browser to browser,” Mouline said, “and this solution is good for those who develop applications with the end user in mind.” With this option, the developer can see what works and what doesn’t, then fix it before moving on, he said.

All solutions in the platform upgrade are available on a subscription basis and offer a different way to view application performance. “Developers have to understand clearly what the end user will see at the end of the day when the application is ready to go,” Mouline said.