Red Bend Unveils Linux Mobile Phone Software With Over the Air Updates

WALTHAM, MA – Red Bend Software has unveiled a Linux mobile phone with software that can be fully customized over the air. Red Bend has partnered with industry-leading companies — including Digital Airways, Opera, Synchronica, Trolltech and Zi — to showcase a new concept in customizing mobile software where features, applications and services can be deployed and updated easily and securely over the air on consumers' handsets using Red Bend's vRapid Mobile.

The concept phone is called MAST, an abbreviation for Master Key, to symbolize a new milestone in Open Access, where any software on any mobile device can be customized at any time during the device lifecycle. Red Bend will demonstrate MAST live during Mobile World Congress 2008, February 11-14 in Barcelona, in the Red Bend business suite 4.3HS50 in Hall 4 and the Trolltech stand #2C72 in Hall 2.

"Until now, the entire mobile value chain has struggled to find a solution to enable post-sale, over-the-air customization of mobile software, especially for feature phones where core applications and services are embedded in ROM," said Yoram Salinger, CEO of Red Bend Software. "vRapid Mobile solves this need today, and we have joined efforts with major players in the industry to show how new revenue streams can be realized through mobile software management."

MAST is based on the Trolltech Qtopia application platform for Linux and is implemented on Trolltech's Qtopia Greenphone. The Synchronica Device Management Server provides the device management server connection from which software is provisioned in a secure and reliable manner using the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Device Management protocol.

Several companies have joined forces with Red Bend to show how their core applications and embedded software can be customized over the air, creating new revenue opportunities by delivering enhanced services and features to consumers, such as:

 — Updating the Opera mobile browser without needing to update the entire firmware image. More mobile services now depend on features supported by the browser. For example, operator portals may depend on SVG and Flash support built into the browser. vRapid Mobile enables the built-in browser to be enhanced so that operators can evolve their services independently of the handset release cycle.

 — Deploying a customized operator-branded user interface, powered by Digital Airways' Kaleido, to existing subscribers who insert their SIM in a new mobile phone. With vRapid Mobile, operators can customize a generic handset and then promote their services via the Kaleido user interface while building brand loyalty.

 — Adding new languages dynamically and enabling dual-language messaging to a subscriber's phone using Zi's eZiText solution for predictive text entry. Not all language databases can be supported at time of shipment. vRapid Mobile offers the flexibility to enhance language support either at point of sale or post-sale, potentially increasing text messaging volumes.

Red Bend's vRapid Mobile offers unmatched capabilities to enhance and customize the growing amount of software in mobile devices. With support for the emerging SCOMO enabler from the Open Mobile Alliance, vRapid Mobile provides a standards-based, cross-platform approach to updating, adding, configuring and removing individual software components over the air (SCOTA) on any feature phone, smartphone or embedded wireless device so that:

 — Operators can instantly deliver new revenue-generating services to their entire subscriber base, without being constrained by the software capabilities of existing handsets or waiting for new handsets to become available,

 — Device manufacturers can improve the flexibility and efficiency of their software maintenance processes, and can provide consumers with the ability to personalize the core functions of their phones to match their lifestyles, and

 — ISVs can dramatically reduce time-to-market for deploying new features and versions of their applications, as well as expand the addressable market for their products