VMware's MVP brings virtualization to mobile phones
VMware provides a full line of virtualization software for the data center and down to the desktop. Now it is reaching down to an even smaller form factor: mobile phones.
On Monday, the Palo Alto, Calif. virtualization pioneer unveiled its new VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP), based on technology it acquired fom Trango Virtual Processors last month.
The MVP, as it is known, 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," VMware noted.
MVP currently supports Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0, Linux 2.6.x, Symbian 9.x, eCos, µITRON NORTi and µC/OS-II.
The intent is to isolate the applications and data from the hardware so that handset manufacturers can deploy devices more quickly and so that application developers can write a mobile app or service once and run it anywhere. "The use of multiple chipsets, operating systems and device drivers across a product family" significantly slows down manufacturers' ability to ship new devices into the market. The MVP software promises to reduce time-to-market for handset manufacturers and service providers.
It will also help handset manufacturers embrace open source operating systems, VMware notes.
"Increasingly handset vendors and carriers are looking to migrate from proprietary operating systems to rich, open operating systems so their customers can choose from the widest selection of applications," according to a release issued about MVP this week. "With this transition to open operating systems, protection of trusted services such as digital rights management, authentication, billing, etc. is becoming an increasing concern. VMware MVP allows vendors to isolate these important trusted services from the open operating system and run them in isolated and tamper-proof virtual machines so that even if the open environment is compromised, the trusted services are not impacted."
Finally, the MVP software offers end users and their employers an additional benefit.
"Companies are under increasing pressure from employees to support employee-owned mobile devices," VMware states. "MVP will allow IT organizations to deploy a corporate phone personality that can run along side the employee’s personal phone on the same physical device. "
In addition to support for corporate and personal profiles, the MVP code allows end users to create a "persona" on the go that consists of files, applications, services and data rolled up into a package that can be moved from one device to another.