Lenovo Group has chosen Red Bend Software’s vRapid Mobile solution to enable firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updates on its new line of LePhone Android-based smartphones. LePhone is Lenovo’s first smartphone built to push information and services such as e-mail, news, music and video to mobile consumers. It is sold exclusively by China Unicom, one of the country’s largest mobile service providers.

vRapid Mobile is currently deployed in 750m mobile devices worldwide. The solution enables manufacturers and operators to create compact firmware updates for mobile phones and other wireless devices and install the updates over the air rapidly and with complete reliability.

vRapid Mobile is the only FOTA solution to perform firmware updates in the background, without interrupting consumers as they use their phones. Red Bend says it helps improve mobile user satisfaction by enabling delivery of new features and performance improvements to phones easily and conveniently, strengthening customer loyalty and boosting ARPU.

3G services have debuted strongly in China, generating demand for a new wave of feature-rich smartphones. To ensure that new 3G handsets can be managed easily and cost-effectively, major mobile operators require new devices to include FOTA updating and device management (DM) capabilities, which has resulted in market share growth for Red Bend in the country.

“Red Bend is excited that vRapid Mobile is powering software updates in Lenovo’s first smartphone,” says Danny Wang, country manager of Greater China for Red Bend Software.

“Lenovo is the world’s fastest growing PC maker, with year-over-year sales up nearly 60 per cent in the first quarter of 2010. That same commitment to excellence will, I believe, help the company achieve similar success in the highly competitive smartphone market.”