According to an announcement made last Wednesday, Red Bend Software (News - Alert) will extend its global multi-year licensing agreement with Sony Mobile Communications, providing firmware-over-the-air updates (FOTA) for the Xperia product line of Android (News - Alert)-based smartphones and tablets.

Red Bend Software provides standards-based mobile software management (MSM) solutions for mobile devices, configuring firmware, applications and middleware to ensure uniformity within a given platform.

The Waltham, MA-based company is privately held and has offices in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

The FOTA solution that Red Bend offers ensures that the latest software updates are available to consumers. In the competitive mobile device industry, the pressure to get products to the market is so great that they’re often delivered with a software and firmware configuration that is incomplete and out of date.

When a new device is activated on the network, it receives the latest software.

The licensing agreement calls for Red Bend's vRapid Mobile technology to provide FOTA updating in over 140 Sony mobile devices. This technology is designed to have the smallest technological footprint needed to perform the update.

The delta-update feature includes only necessary changes. The file size of these updates is 97 percent less than conventional updates, resulting in less bandwidth and memory consumption, yet is still reliable.

Updates are quick and run in the background so consumers can user their devices without enduring any interruptions. Repartitioning ensures that the update will fit on the device.

vRapid FOTA updates are also available for automotive applications. As automobiles use more electronics than in previous generations and include built-in GPS and other devices, updating these devices can be done in similar fashion to updating smartphones and tablets.

FOTA for Automotive can significantly reduce warranty costs and reduce recalls related to software configuration.

One of the biggest inconveniences with computing technology has been the delays from installing updates. Who hasn't suffered through the aggravation of booting up a PC, running an app, then getting a message that the app needs to update? Then to top it all off you must reboot for the changes to take effect. Much of this has not changed, even with mobile devices dominating the market.

The vRapid technology by Red Bend is the way updates should be performed, especially in a mobile environment that demands instant results.