Assessing Android

Earlier this week, news broke that for the first time since it hit the market, Android smartphones have overtaken both BlackBerry and iPhone. The popular mobile device now claims a 29% share of the U.S. market while its chief competitors hover in second place with 27% each.

The news of Android phones’ rise in popularity, however, comes amidst almost daily reports of flaws in application software – from OSs to third-party applications – associated with the device, many of them security related. BlackBerry and iPhone are not immune, either.

The spate of flawed software combined with the exponential rise in mobile devices being used for business purposes prompted CAST to announce plans to launch a new Mobile Application Assessment Program. The announcement of the program comes in conjunction with this week’s AnDevCon developers’ conference in San Francisco and leverages CAST's acquisition last month of Cloud-based software from a sole source service provider to the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS). The new assessment program will  be offered as a portal that will automatically analyze and measure thousands of lines of code and provide feedback on software size and health, based on industry norms, standards and best practices. The analysis is intended to validate a developer’s ability to create structurally sound application software for mobile devices.

As CAST notes in its announcement of the mobile assessment program, “Because so much of business today is conducted on mobile devices that access enterprise networks, an independent third-party assessment program is needed to ensure that applications being accessed via mobile are safe, structurally sound and efficient.  The same holds true for consumer apps, such as games and ads.”

The first rollout of the mobile assessment program, expected to be for developers of Android applications, is slated for Q2 of this year. More information about the program is available here.