Persistent Systems has recently announced the establishment of a Center of Excellence (CoE) around the Android Open Mobile platform. The focus of the center will be to develop feature-rich applications on the versatile Android platform.

“Assured by the strong market predictions and Android’s current growth rate, Persistent has invested in the CoE,” said Dr. R.  Venkateswaran, Head - Telecom & Mobile Business Unit at Persistent Systems. “We are excited about the launch, and strongly believe that with our unique blend of experience and expertise on Android, we can facilitate partner companies to expedite development on this rich and evolving platform.”

Network operators, handset manufacturers and developers of new mobile applications and services can leverage the Center’s expertise to grow their open source mobile markets. The Persistent team has developed tools and frameworks that can accelerate application development, porting and interoperability testing of mobile applications. It works on application development and also on Linux-based source code which involves porting Android to different chipsets.

As a part of these development efforts the CoE has recently released two applications for the Android market namely Knight Tour and World of Web (WoW).  While Knight Tour is an online chess game, WoW can provide users a new browser experience by allowing them to view multiple Web Pages and RSS feeds at the click of a button - presenting their favorite links at one place. These applications are available for download on the application store.