Red Bend Software

While neither company is confirming the deal, rumour has it that IBM and Red Bend (Waltham, MA, USA) are in talks for the multi-national to acquire the Mobile Software Management (MSM) firm for £200million.

About Red Bend Software
Red Bend Software, a leader in Mobile Software Management (MSM), provides software solutions for managing firmware, applications and devices over the air. The company’s award-winning MSM products enable device manufacturers, mobile operators and software developers to increase revenues, reduce support costs and achieve faster time to market by remotely managing their software assets on mobile devices.

Red Bend had been the target of talks inside Google, as the company specializes in two fashionable mobile technologies, virtualization and over-the-air updates. Unlike device management vendors with proprietary end-to-end systems and manufacturers’ internally developed solutions that are platform specific, Red Bend is the only company offering independent client software that is interoperable with any standards-based server and that works with any platform on any type of mobile device. Red Bend entered the high-growth mobile virtualization market with its acquisition of VirtualLogix in September 2010. Founded in 1999, Red Bend is a privately held, venture capital-financed company with offices in China, Israel, Japan, Korea, France, the U.K. and the U.S.

There has been no comment from either IBM or Red Bend on this potential acquisition.

Red Bend provides services to global cellular manufacturers such as Samsung, Lenovo, LG and ZTE, as well as to mobile operators such as Japanese DoComo, which holds a share in the company.

In total, Red Bend serves 80 mobile manufacturers and providers, modem manufacturers, semiconductor manufacturers and automobile companies.