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Android Phones Get Virtualization
bednarz writes "VMware is teaming with LG to sell Android smartphones that are virtualized, allowing a single phone to run two operating systems, one for business use and one for personal use. A user's personal email and applications would run natively on the Android phone, while a guest operating system contains the employee's work environment. The devices would also have two phone numbers."
Although I'd appreciate a phone that, for once, did the basic things right first. Like with car stereos, I have yet to find a device that does not have one or more major annoyances.
This actually sounds... Like a great idea to have two numbers reach the same phone. My worry is the battery consumption will go through the roof (on a piece of technology that already doesn't have the greatest battery life times) and that computing resources will be in short supply on a mobile device (which brings us back to power consumption).
I'd appreciate a link to the print version, like this
forced to pay a add a line fee for line 2 + a 2th data plan? Can you have dual os with 1 number?
In the early 70s I bought phones for my group that could have two numbers. As soon as we went to Brazil I opened accounts and the phones worked there on the second number. This was much, much less expensive and less complicated than renting phones and we could receive calls from the US.
Nate
I think this is a great idea. If your personal phone and work phones are kept separate and only one can be used at a time, you wouldn't be tethered to work 24 hours a day anymore. You can actually have an excuse to respond to emails the next day instead of at 4 AM.
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I wonder whether this capability saves a user from an employer's ability to wipe the user's data remotely. How is this concern addressed?
Well, if one of your phone OSes is for business, I'd assume that the business will pay for at least that data and phone plan.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Isn't this a little overkill? I mean the only thing that sounded good about it was the whole "two numbers" thing - but you can do that without virtualizaing complete operating systems.
While, obviously, virtualization is the technology that VMware is going to throw at any use case, since "when all you have is a hammer, etc." It seems like a really hackish approach.
.1 second. Allows you to skip some of the really expensive "zOMG this particular piece of hardware must never, ever, ever die even once in the next decade" add-ons without compromising uptime. 2. Near-perfect compatibility with legacy software: Barring really esoteric stuff that is depending on being right next to the metal of some specific archaic box, all the legacy crapware out there needs to know absolutely nothing about virtualization in order to virtualize. Virtualization aware OSes can make life a bit easier; but there is nothing stopping you from running almost any obsolete crap you need to run on a virtual machine that looks exactly like something from 1995, only with a 3 GHz processor and loads of RAM. 3. Isolation and rollback, particularly for workstations, being able to call up, experiment on, roll back, and delete OS instances makes doing potentially dangerous things safe.
Virtualization, in my server/workstation experience, has three major benefits: 1. Migration: Assuming a decent SAN setup and some fastish interconnects, your VM can float merrily from physical server to physical server with periods of unresponsiveness under
However, all these things are either irrelevant to cellphones(unless your cellphone has SAN storage and a GB link to the redundant cellphone in your other pocket...) or artefacts of the fact that legacy software largely sucks at things like isolation and versioning. Virtualization, like the AMD64 instruction set, is massively popular because it allows the power of architectures that don't suck without giving up legacy software that runs on architectures that do. With something like Android, though, an almost-totally-new OS is being built from near-scratch to suit a new set of requirements. Virtualization seems very heavy handed compared to something like having isolated namespaces and URI "domains" into which programs can be confined...
Admittedly, I find this very cool. I'll be interested to see how this works out in the real world. What will performance be like? I know when I virtualize desktop machines, performance is anything but stellar. What will battery life be like? How many people will actually want their personal phone and thier business phone to be mixed? Do you have two separate service plans with two separate bills? Who will pay the bill(s)? Lots of questions, few answers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
It seems like this is a solution to the problem of corporate policies wiping personal data from employees' phones. I wonder if one of the phone numbers can be automatically diverted to voicemail outside office hours.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
So... it'll need twice the good stuff(proc, memory) in order to run the same speed as what some of the newer *roid phones do. Means that pricing won't be that wonderful, even on a subsidized plan. Besides that, having two numbers would *still* need an extra sim card, then wouldn't the OS have to be extended in order to recognize another sim slot and disseminate between the two of them? I'd rather see google working on allowing me to have more than one gvoice number on my nexus rather than a sub-par(IMHO) manufacturer such as LG creating a "neat" proof of concept. I'm glad it might be possible, but isn't there a better use of time and energy?
Yo dawg, we heard you like phone operating systems, so we put a phone operating system in your phone operating system so you can call people while you call people.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is the sort of tech Sony will use on their phone to keep the gaming portion separate from the android portion.
I think the best solution would be a new service option for these phones, where you just pay an extra $5/mo to get a second number on the same device. Just as the better ISPs allow you to get a second IP address for a reasonable fee.
I wish I thought of it first!
Fact is, one of the nicer things about virtualization is the removal of dependency on hardware. The OS, Applications and data can all be packaged neatly in one or a few files that are transportable to other hosts. These can be backed up and recovered. Lose your phone? No problem! Get another one and restore your phone image to it! That virtualization might enable the existence of more than one phone running concurrently is nice and interesting, but having even one phone virtualized is awesome.
This sounds like overkill. How about two userids. The employer has the password the user "work" only.
Why do they need to virtualize it? Linux has better methods of "virtualizing" with a lot less overhead. OpenVZ and LXC being two.
From the way it sounds, it runs like a desktop hypervisor - so it's a hardware layer virtualization.
OpenVZ and LXC run like Solaris Containers and FreeBSD Jails.. OS level virtualization. They're still isolated, but they share the same kernel, so a second kernel doesn't need to run - saving resources and CPU time.
Why does VMWare need to make it more complicated than it really needs to be?
Call me strange but I don't want a feature that facilitates my employer putting their crap on _my_ phone.
'I think the best solution would be a new service option for these phones, where you just pay an extra $5/mo to get a second number on the same device.'
If you're ok with your bosses carrier only.
would be to create a netbook sized device that contains no motherboard, but instead operates as an external screen, keyboard, storage device, and battery when plugged into an android phone. Then you could boot up a full Linux OS with a larger screen and keyboard, recharge your phone, and have external storage. And since the external device would have no motherboard there would be plenty of room for disks and batteries in a nice thin case...it should run for quite some time too :)
The OS should be able to switch profiles automatically. If I receive a call from a contact that's marked as a client/professional contact, then use the professional profile. If it's from my drinking buddy, go to personal. If it's my design partner (professional AND personal contact), then use the time of day or schedule to select - if I'm in a meeting or it's business hours, use professional - otherwise use personal.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
one number and two google voice numbers might work...
"...The devices would also have two phone numbers." If we talk about GSM, devices have no phone number, SIM card is identified on netwok and associated with a phone number. Unless the SIM card is dual IMSI, there is only one phone number. As far as I know, a SIM is using only 1 IMSI at the time, something is missing or you'll still have to power off a VM and start the other one...
more like $5-$10 add a line + $30-$60 data plan add a line.
VMWare has demonstrated virtualization software for mobile OSes before, but it turned out to be vaporware, maybe things will be different this time...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."
My UID is prime. Hah!
Couldn't you add meta-data to the entries/programs/etc - "click" a button and the GUI would display only the entries with a work tag. Switch to personal mode and only the personal entries would be displayed.
Also, I had a phone years ago that had two numbers on it. So that's not new.
True, I can't imagine getting any sort of bundling discount if your work environment and personal environment are on different carriers. Still I hope the phones support that configuration (two SIM cards). Unfortunately that sounds like the sort of flexibility that will be available everywhere else BUT the US. Somehow we alone have failed to separate owning a handset from activating it on a given network.