Popularity – the elusive Holy Grail sought by many a geek during the school years. In that social setting, you paid a price for not being popular. The irony is that in today's technology setting the reverse is true: being popular often paints a target on your back – just ask Microsoft and the thousands of customers who have to update their Windows security settings every month.

The miscreants who develop computer viruses and other malware follow the popular crowd. They go where the action is and, according to Eset, a leader in proactive digital threat protection, the action is in mobile devices, which is why the company has announced a free beta version of Eset Mobile Antivirus.

The time is right for mobile antivirus. At least, that's what Dan Clark, vice president of marketing at Eset thinks. "It has to do with the number of phones in the market – 35 million of them shipped in the fourth quarter of 2007, which is up 72 percent from the same time period in 2006," he said.

Clark claims the market for smartphones is close to150 million. "It's increased to the point that malware developers will target Smartphones more heavily to generate financial gain," he said. "Attacks follow volume, and we wanted to get our product out a bit before it's really needed."

The Eset products designed for computer desktops are known for having very little impact on system performance, and Clark says this holds true with Eset Mobile Antivirus. "The mobile product uses a very small client and has minimal memory, minimal bandwidth and minimal CPU requirements," said Clark. "It's been optimized especially for the mobile phone platform."

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