The international CTIA Wireless, a premier wireless event that brings together wireless and converged communications, wireless broadband and mobile Web, began today in Orlando, and uTest kicked off the festivities with the announcement that it was unveiling its uTest Express, a service geared at giving startups affordable access to the company’s community of professional testers.

uTest, the world's largest marketplace for software testing services, has been working since 2008 with more than 35,000 professional testers to help industry moguls like AOL, Groupon, Microsoft and Intuit (News - Alert) launch high-quality Web and mobile applications. With its latest offering, uTest Express, the benefits of professional mobile app testing and expert feedback are now available to early-stage startups, according to company officials.

"The idea for uTest Express has been percolating for more than a year, and we started beta testing late in 2010," Matt Johnston, CMO for uTest, told TMCnet. "Essentially, ever since we launched uTest, leading firms like AOL (News - Alert), Microsoft, ICQ and Intuit have been using our crowdsourced testing as an important complement to their in-house testing procedures to make sure their apps work in “real world” conditions."

"All the while, uTest was fielding more and more requests from individual app developers and early-stage startups that wanted the value of our service, but needed it priced within their budgets," he added. "They also needed the service to be extremely intuitive and easy-to-use since most of them don’t have the professional testing expertise found in larger, more established enterprises.  uTest Express solves both these needs, providing access to our service to a whole new market segment."

Once each real-world testing project is complete, customers will receive a list of well-documented bugs, including screenshots and videos, with steps on how to reproduce them. uTest Express also provides customers with feedback from the expert testers which discusses the application, ratings and interface design and usability suggestions.

“The vast majority of mobile applications are being developed by companies with fewer than 50 employees,” said Matt Johnston, chief marketing officer for uTest, in a statement. “Yet for too long, these companies couldn’t access or afford professional testing services. With the launch of uTest Express, startups can validate the quality of their apps, speed up their app store approval process, and gain visibility into what kind of app store ratings they can expect to receive.”

uTest Express also boasts cost effectiveness are there are three testing packages available, customized to fit any startup budget. Starting at only $499 per test cycle, uTest Express offers three tiers of testing: Bronze, Silver and Gold.

The service is easy to use as a simple interface walks customers through a series of questions to identify their testing needs and facilitate the creation of the testing project.

uTest Express also promises that no simulators or emulators are used, just real devices for testing; that it can work on all mobile operating systems including iOS, Android (News - Alert), Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Symbian; and that it is accessible 24 hours every day.

"uTest hopes to level the playing field and give app developers and start-ups the same fighting chance at launching a reliable, popular mobile app as the big players in the market," Johnston said. "By providing smaller companies access to professional testers via uTest Express, at a price that fits any budget, we think we can accelerate innovation and help creative minds bring their extraordinary apps to market with more speed and success."