By Angela Gunn
The possibilities are tantalizing. For instance, Citrix is said to be nearing the Apple App Store (metaphorically speaking) with virtualization software for the iPhone. If the makers of the popular GoToMyPC app can deliver, the new number-two smartphone vendor could offer a powerful push for adoption to business folk using Wintel systems at work.
Over at market leader VMware, meanwhile, they've talking up VMware MVP (Mobile Virtualization Platform), which frames the virtualization possibilities in terms of the things users already do on their phone -- or, rather, phones. One of the chief selling points of MVP is its potential to allow "multiple personalities" for a single device -- that's right, two phones / one handset. That would be happy news for those whose jobs require that they carry a work phone but not use it for personal purposes, since the phone's functionality could be swapped between a corporate personality (security-conscious, approved apps only) and personal settings (Bejeweled, photo-happy).
That sort of Chinese wall will cheer up the IT guys responsible for troubleshooting those work devices, and the prospect of quick development over multiple platforms -- another aspect of VMware's mobile-virtualization pitch -- ought to cheer the software-development types. Some might argue that that's why we have Java, but faced with the practical aspects of running, say, Windows CE and Symbian operating systems and apps on the same device, VMware's investment in mobile this week makes good sense. The company announced the purchase in October of Trango Virtual Processors, a French specialist firm. Continued...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment