VMware announced plans to bring virtualization to mobile phones through its new VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP). The MVP is built on technology acquired from Trango (News - Alert) Virtual Processors last month.

 

VMware MVP is a thin layer of software that is embedded on a mobile phone to decouple the applications and data from the underlying hardware. It is optimized to run efficiently on low power consuming and memory constrained mobile phones.

 

The MVP currently supports a wide range of real-time and rich operating systems including Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0, Linux 2.6.x, Symbian (News - Alert) 9.x, eCos, µITRON NORTi and µC/OS-II.

 

Through virtualization, which will make the operating system and applications independent of the underlying hardware, handset vendors would gain reduced development time and get mobile phones with value-added services to market faster.

 

VMware sources also said that by using the MVP, vendors can deploy the same software stack on a wide variety of phones irrespective of underlying hardware differences. Further, by isolating the device drivers from the operating system, handset vendors save on porting costs because they can now use the same drivers irrespective of the operating system deployed on the phone.

 

“By abstracting the applications and data from the hardware itself, we expect that virtualization will not only enable handset vendors to accelerate time to market but can also pave the way for innovative applications and services for phone users,” said Paul Maritz, president and CEO at VMware, in a statement.

 

To offer their customers a richer variety of services, handset vendors and carriers seek to migrate to open operating systems. To protect important services from security breaches, VMware MVP will allow vendors to isolate services such as digital rights management, authentication and billing from the open operating system. In case of a security breach, these trusted services are not impacted, company sources said.

 

An interesting feature that the MVP offers end users is the ability to create multiple personalities on the same phone; for example, one for personal use and one for work. According to official sources, with virtualization companies can use fewer devices, thus reducing the complexity and cost and increasing security.

 

Another benefit virtualization brings to the end user is the ability to easily move their phone persona to a new device. With the advent of smartphones, a person’s phone persona has become richer and valuable. It can include, for example, a collection of applications, pictures, videos, music, e-mails, bank info, credit card information, personal information management (PIM), etc.

 

According to company sources, VMware MVP saves the persona as a set of files so that all the applications and data on the phone can be managed as a collection of files. Having a ‘persona on the go’ is likely to become an important factor in purchasing of new phones, they said.

 

“We predict that by 2012, more than 50 percent of new smartphones shipped will be virtualized,” said Monica Basso, an analyst at Gartner (News - Alert), in the recently published ‘The Emerging Market for Smartphone Hypervisors’ report. “Virtualization can enable enterprises and consumers to easily manage and secure their phones and it can also help handset vendors reduce bills of materials and shorten development cycles to allow for faster releases.”

 

A public software company, VMware offers virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. Headquartered in Palo Alto (News - Alert), California, VMware is majority-owned by EMC Corporation.