Around the Net

Virtualization For The Mobile Phone: Everybody Wins!

VirtualLogix, a mobile virtualization startup, on Monday received a big cash infusion from Motorola. The handset maker and other big techs like Intel and Texas Instruments see a big future for virtualization software on the mobile phone, technology that lets mobile devices run more features and easily integrate applications running on different mobile operating systems. This is good news for developers, handset makers and consumers. Here's why:

Currently, mobile software writers have to rewrite the applications they create for each mobile operating system-Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, etc.-a process that takes months. Virtualization eliminates this by allowing a processor (chip) to run several operating systems at once, instead of just one. In theory, this would allow a handset maker to combine, for example, BlackBerry's email delivery system (which runs on Symbian) with Apple's Web browser (which runs on OS X) using the processing power of one chip.

Normally, smartphones require a baseband processor for communication, an applications processor for apps like email, and a multimedia chip for audio and video. A virtualized phone can perform all these functions with one or two processors, lowering the cost and time-barrier of creating phones, while allowing them to perform more functions, and (potentially) eliminating the need for programmers to rewrite software apps for different operating systems.

Read the whole story at BusinessWeek »

Next story loading loading..