VMware Promises Multiple OSs On One Cellphone 90
superglaze writes to tell us that VMware has announced a large effort behind their Mobile Virtualization Platform, promising the possibility of multiple operating systems on mobile devices. "The company described MVP as a 'thin layer of software' that will be embedded in handsets and 'be optimized to run efficiently on low-power-consuming and memory-constrained mobile phones.' Asked whether MVP would offer something different from the abstraction already provided by mobile Java, VMware's European product director Fredrik Sjostedt told ZDNet UK that MVP would require less recoding. 'If you want to have an application run on a Java-specific appliance, you need to code it for Java,' Sjostedt said. 'What we're introducing with MVP is an [embedded] abstraction layer below that, between the physical hardware and the software layer.'"
Samsung? (Score:5, Informative)
I saw a demo by Samsung a while back of their ARM port of Xen running multiple operating systems on a mobile phone [xen.org]. Not sure what the status of the technology is now, but they had some pretty nice ideas with the driver model and were talking about live-migrating your VM from your phone to your TV when you got home.
Re:All I Can Say Is It's About Bloody Time (Score:5, Informative)
Re:All I Can Say Is It's About Bloody Time (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Will customers really want this ? (i.e. carrier (Score:2, Informative)
Perhaps in the United States. In most of Europe all the phones are not subsidized by the carriers, are paid by the customers and are unlocked.
Data, networks, frequencies. They are all standard and can be connected to with any phone on the market.
VMware's vClient initiative (Score:4, Informative)
For those of you thinking that this is a solution in search of a problem, let me outline where VMware is going with this.
At VMworld this year, Paul Maritz (VMware CEO) outlined their strategy for the future of the desktop - a world where users are given access to applications and data regardless of the end device. Today we see desktops as more device-centric, rather than people centric. VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) is a step in the direction of device-independence. It doesn't matter if I'm at work, at home, or on the road, I can get to the same desktop, applications, and data.
But going forward VMware is looking at delivering the entire desktop steamed down as a VM to a "client hypervisor", so instead of viewing as it runs remotely in a datacenter, the data is streamed down and processed locally so there's no lag induced by a high-latency link or something like that.
This works great for ordinary PCs or x86-based thin clients. Where VMware is going is taking their hypervisor layer and moving it to the mobile device, so that a user can get their same desktop (or a subset of its functionality) even from their PDA/smartphone. That's the purpose of this technology long term - it's not so you can run Android in a VM on your iPhone.
Re:All I Can Say Is It's About Bloody Time (Score:3, Informative)
Outside the US, anyway.
Inside the US, it matters not what the handset maker's software can do. Verizon cripples them all and puts their own shitware & UI on them.