LG, Red Bend Showcase Mobile Virtualization at CES

There are a couple of mobile virtualization developments to report. First, LG is using CES 2012 as a soapbox to demonstrate VMware virtual Android machines running on a Verizon Revolution, thus creating a personal phone that individual users manage, plus a work phone that their employers control. The word from CES is that Verizon and Telefonica will be introducing this bifurcated mobile phone sometime in the “coming months,” but at this point it is still in proof of concept stage.

The less noticed announcement comes from Red Bend Software, which is a major force in the mobile software management market. Red Bend unveiled vLogix Mobile, which it calls “the first mobile virtualization solution ready for mass-market deployment to consumer and enterprise smartphones, tablets, modems and wirelessly connected devices.”

Red Bend goes on to say vLogix Mobile is the first mobile virtualization solution that can be integrated in weeks, as opposed to months (it looks like LG and Red Bend are moving at a similar pace). The new product enables two operating systems to run simultaneously, separately and securely on the same hardware. Also, like the LG phone, vLogix Mobile plays the BYOD game by combining separate profiles for business and personal use on the same smartphone and extending support for legacy software on new platforms.

Red Bend is not yet widely known in the consumer market, but these guys have been busy pumping out more than a billion Red Bend-enabled devices, and their customers include more than 80 device manufacturers, mobile operators, semiconductor vendors and automotive companies worldwide.

Posted by Bruce Hoard on 01/10/2012 at 12:48 PM