CAST Software has announced Appmarq, a database the company says is the first application quality benchmarking repository. The Appmarq database contains software quality statistics, trend data, and best practices collected from a number of industry sectors and geographies.

Appmarq is designed to help organizations improve IT risk management practices. By comparing their software quality against a specific industry, Appmarq provides organizations with valuable insight into how an application's performance, or lack of performance, is impacting bottom-line results. This enables users to ensure the success of existing applications, reduce IT costs and improve productivity.

Data is generated directly from the source code using CAST's quality-measurement algorithms; Appmarq is not survey-based and requires no human input. Appmarq data will also be used in collaboration with organizations like Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and Object Management Group (OMG) to publish benchmarking reports featuring key insights and trends on the quality of business IT software.

"Appmarq is filling a large void in the software applications industry, providing organizations with actionable data on internal software quality and its impact on productivity across the business landscape," said CAST's Olivier Bonsignour. "With Appmarq data, organizations can set and measure goals, identify improvement opportunities, monitor vendor performance and clearly demonstrate an application's value to the business."

Initial Appmarq data suggests a number of trends, including:

• Appmarq application maintainability scores are significantly lower for government organizations when compared with private-sector companies. The difference may well account for the significantly higher maintenance spent (up to 18 percent higher, according to Gartner) by the public the sector. This insight provides government executives with visibility into the root causes of maintenance spending, enabling them to set improvement targets, monitor the success of new processes and reduce application maintenance costs.
• Appmarq data shows that application performance scores are significantly higher, by nearly 20 percent, than application maintenance scores. This is true across industry sectors, technologies and geographies. Nearly 70 percent of an IT organization's budget goes into maintenance. However, organizations typically are not focused on reducing long-term costs by improving applications, but rather focus on more tangible characteristics perceived by end users. This data provides organizations with insight into IT risk management practices, such as helping identify areas where more or less investment is required to improve quality and productivity, while reducing costs and risks.