(MSM), today announced that its market-leading vCurrent® Mobile software has shipped in more than 365 million mobile devices worldwide, surpassing its original forecast of 360 million. This new milestone represents a 140% year-over-year growth rate since second quarter 2007, when the company's firmware over-the-air (FOTA) software shipped in 150 million devices. Red Bend also expanded its number of licensees by three, for a total of 32 customers of its MSM solutions. The new licensees are based in China. Red Bend forecasts that in the third quarter its software will reach 430 million mobile devices, including mobile phones, mobile broadband PC cards, USB modems and machine-to-machine (M2M) wireless modules.

Red Bend surpassed its forecast due to the growing demand for FOTA among operators worldwide, as well as increased adoption of FOTA by manufacturers of mobile phones and other types of wireless devices. Red Bend enables operators and manufacturers to offer a rich mobile user experience by delivering software improvements over the air to more than 40 mobile platforms -- the broadest support of any FOTA client.

Expanding Market Adoption

During the second quarter, manufacturers launched 23 mobile devices with Red Bend's software, bringing the total to 181 Red Bend-enabled devices. New devices with Red Bend's software include a GSM cellular module from a market-leading M2M manufacturer; Sierra Wireless' Compass™ 597 USB modem; and two handsets manufactured by Japan Radio Company (JRC) for Willcom: WX220J-Z and WX321J-Z.

"Red Bend is progressing from a pure FOTA player to targeting all device-side software management. We continue to be impressed with the company and its targeted strategy for growth as it looks to expand beyond its FOTA roots," said Tony Rizzo, Research Director with The 451 Group, a technology industry analyst company focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation, in his report. "In addition to mobile handsets, there is now a substantial and rapidly growing market for mobile devices that are not handsets (e.g., cellular modem cards for laptops) that nevertheless require the same MSM capabilities as mobile handsets. Red Bend will be looking to tap into this market going forward." (This comment appeared in an independent report, titled "FOTA Player Red Bend Delivers New Technology, New Branding and $10M in New Funding," which was published on April 28, 2008; see Note below.)

Broad Mobile Platform Support

Operators face a growing challenge of managing myriad devices in a unified way. Red Bend removes this complexity by bringing standards-based software management to an extensive line-up of more than 40 mobile platforms, including Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for smartphones, and Texas Instruments' LoCosto™ platform for entry-range handsets. In the second quarter, Red Bend also joined the LiMo Foundation, a consortium of mobile industry leaders dedicated to delivering an open and globally consistent handset software platform based on Mobile Linux. In addition, Red Bend announced interoperability with standards-based device management servers from Sicap and Motive Inc.

"Tens of millions of consumers worldwide have enjoyed improved performance and new capabilities with their mobile phones thanks to Red Bend," said Yoram Salinger, CEO of Red Bend Software. "Red Bend is changing the way that manufacturers and platform providers bring new mobile phones to market, the way operators launch and deliver new mobile services and the way consumers personalize the features and applications on their mobile phones. In the near future, innovations like Red Bend's Background Updates will make updating mobile software as commonplace as updating PCs."

Note: The 451 Group's report, "FOTA Player Red Bend Delivers New Technology, New Branding and $10M in New Funding" referenced above, is an independently produced report that was neither sponsored by nor otherwise funded directly by Red Bend Software. The report and its entire contents are the sole property of The 451 Group, copyright 2008, and are reproduced here by permission. The entire contents of this report are available at www.the451group.com. 

Information Source:    Marketwire