VMware Inc. is bringing virtualization to mobile phones through its new Mobile Virtualization Platform, or MVP.

Built on technology acquired from Trango Virtual Processors in October 2008, VMware MVP will help handset vendors reduce development time and get mobile phones with value-added services to market faster. In addition, the platform will let consumers run multiple profiles -- for example, one for personal use and one for work use -- on the same phone.

"We optimize virtualization for mobile phones, which is the foundation of MVP, giving you the ability to run multiple virtual machines on a single device," said Srinivas Krishnamurti, director of product development for VMware, Palo Alto, CA. "Running multiple environments at the same time has a lot of different benefits."

By abstracting the applications and data from the hardware itself, VMware hopes 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 mobile consumers.

Virtualization in the mobile space as a very promising and potentially a fast-emerging market.
Gartner predicts that by 2012, more than 50 percent of new smartphones shipped will be virtualized.

Virtualization can enable enterprises and consumers to 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.

There is a growing demand for virtualization technologies from both the designers and consumers of next-generation mobile devices using the ARM Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 processors.

VMware MVP is a thin layer of software that will be embedded on a mobile phone that decouples the applications and data from the underlying hardware.

It will be optimized to run on low-power-consuming and memory-constrained mobile phones.

The MVP is planned to enable handset vendors to bring phones to market faster and make them easier to manage.

The benefits to handset manufacturers include accelerated time to market and easier migration to rich operating systems.

Today, handset vendors spend significant time and effort getting new phones to market due to the use of multiple chipsets, operating systems and device drivers across their product families.

The same software stack does not work across all the phones and, therefore, must be ported separately for each platform.

This process is slow and expensive and ultimately slows time to market.

VMware MVP will virtualize the hardware, enabling handset vendors to develop a software stack with an operating system and a set of applications that is not tied to the underlying hardware.

This will enable the vendors to deploy the same software stack on a wide variety of phones without worrying about the underlying hardware differences.

At the same time, by isolating the device drivers from the operating system, handset vendors can further reduce porting costs because they can now use the same drivers irrespective of the operating system deployed on the phone.

Increasingly, handset vendors and carriers are looking to migrate from proprietary operating systems to rich, open operating systems to enable their customers to access the widest selection of applications.

With this transition to open operating systems, protection of trusted services such as digital rights management, authentication and billing is becoming an increasing concern.

VMware MVP will allow vendors to isolate these 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 sensitive services are not impacted.

The benefits to businesses and consumers multiple profiles and "persona on the go."

Companies are under increasing pressure from employees to support employee-owned mobile devices.

Choice, however, brings with it complexity in managing a wide variety of devices in terms of both cost and security.

It also brings increased risk in securing and managing employee-owned devices, especially if they contain confidential information.

VMware MVP will let IT organizations deploy a corporate phone personality that can run alongside the employee's personal phone on the same physical device.

Smartphones are becoming a combination of a PC and a wallet rolled into one package.

A person's phone persona -- an individuals' collection of applications, pictures, videos, music, emails, bank info, credit card information and PIM -- is becoming much richer and more valuable.

Consequently, the ability to protect and migrate personas will become an important purchasing decision.

VMware MVP will save 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.

People can then move their persona to a new device, making the upgrade to a new phone more convenient.

VMware specializes in virtualization services from the desktop to the datacenter.

With 2007 revenues of $1.3 billion, more than 120,000 customers and more than 20,000 partners, VMware claims to be one of the fastest growing public software companies.

"The notion of having multiple virtual personalities is interesting," Mr. Krishnamurti said. "I don't want to run my personal stuff on my corporate phone, so instead of having two phones, I have a work profile and a personal profile running right next to each other on the same phone.

"As we look at smartphones, they're not just a communications device, they're a computing device, a combination of a PC and wallet now that people can swipe their cellphone to make payments," he said. "Customers want to run mobile payments apps in secure containers, because they don't want them to be compromised, and virtualization is a key enabler for that as well.

"If you lose your handset or upgrade, wouldn't it be nice to take your entire persona with you onto your new device, reinstalling apps, copying data, copying those files onto your new device and your entire persona appears automatically."