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Nov 10

Ring, Ring…It’s VMware on the Phone

VMwarePost by Mike DiPetrilloAdd comments

Today, VMware announced that they were buying Trango. Trango makes virtualization solutions for the mobile phone or other embedded devices. Now why would VMware do this? Well, if you were at VMworld then you heard all about VMware View. Basically it’s the thought that once you put an app on top of a virtualization layer then the layer actually stretches all the way down to the end device so you don’t have to worry about which app works with what. This is really key when you start looking out at cloud. Cloud is just the middle glue that gets the user to the data. In order for that to work you really need a layer on every possible device that the user could come from. VMware had most of the bases covered already since it’s been in the client virtualization game since the very beginning in 1998. The one missing piece was the cell phone and other embedded devices like set-top boxes.

The play is nice for those in the embedded industry. That industry stretches from the obvious (phones and set-top boxes) to the not so obvious (control systems in most automobiles or on-board missile guidance systems). The real pain the these devices is keeping up with the change in processors, applications, and operating systems. Let’s say you’re cruising along and developing an app for the iPhone. All of a sudden Apple makes someone mad and you get rid of all of the iPhones and go with Blackberries. What do you do with that app? Even worse is when you’re someone like Motorola who has hundreds of set-top boxes and all of them have different architectures. How do you write one app to run across all of these systems?

What this acquisition does is give VMware the keys to the kingdom. They’re now in a position where you can deploy your app on VMware View and know that it can truly get to any device in any location at any time. It also opens a whole new slew of customers to go after in a space where there really aren’t many competitors. It will definitely be interesting to see how this pans out.

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  • Paul
    Mike,

    There are two aspects to this strategy that I struggle with that I would be interested in your commentary on.

    1) The form factor and resource requirements of the two devices are totally different. This I think would make a mobile operating system totally unsuitable for use on a desktop and laptop and likewise desktop OS's would be totally unsuitable for mobile devices. There are certainly advantages in a standardized mobile hypervisor. However, rather than one truly universal platform (hypervisor, OS and app suite) that can move between different platform types, there would be one for each type e.g. Mobile, Laptop etc?

    2) Given that this appears to be platform virtualization rather than application virtualization. If a software house wanted to write an app once and have it be truly portable with this concept, they would need to include JEOS (Just Enough OS)? Given the diversity of hardware platforms in this mobile space, it would seem hard to come up with JEOS to cope with the permutations. Also, in your example of a company moving from an iPhone to a Blackberry, with Platform virtualization, you couldn't take your app without taking the OS as well which apple probably wouldn't allow. I know it was probably an off the cuff example, however the example shows off aspects of VMware's strategy that I'm struggling with.

    Paul
  • Hey, Paul. Yes, the Apple - Blackberry example was off the cuff since I had both sitting in front of me on my desk. The key to the device side is definitely getting rid of the OS inside of the VM. That holds true whether the device is a laptop or a desktop or a phone or a tablet or whatever else. You really need three parts to make this all work out.

    1) You need client virtualization in every device. The Trango acquisition gets all of the embedded stuff. VMware already has good partnerships with the thin client guys. The desktops, laptops, and tablets are all taken care of with VMware Workstation/ACE/Player/Fusion.

    2) You need to get rid of the OS in the VM. There's just too much overhead there and it's really not necessary. The main purpose of the OS is to abstract the hardware from the application and then to schedule out resources. Guess what? That's what the "hypervisor" or virtualization layer does. All you need now is some JeOS like you said that is highly tuned for that specific app and you're in business. Look at the BEA appliance as an example. There's no good modern OS that's specifically tuned for Java. Java always does funky stuff with memory. However, get a VM, write your own microkernel that's highly tuned for Java, and presto - you now have a virtual appliance that runs with 50% less memory and 160% the performance of the physical environment. Pretty nice. That same example can go to other apps as well. There are already vendors such as rPath making JeOS for people to use. Now with OVF (open virtualization format) you can truly build the virtual appliance once and have it run on any virtualization layer.

    3) The last trick is out of the hands of the virtualization vendors. You need to slim down the apps. Sorry to say, but I can't run Exchange on my iPhone. I don't think I'd really want to so that's a bad example. However, I wouldn't want to run MS Office either. I guess I stretched it too far saying that you could write the app once and move it from datacenter to iPhone. However, I do see a day when you could get pretty close. Client side apps are getting thinner and thinner. The fat ones are moving more into VDI environments or being published with Terminal Services or XenApp. The thin ones really could run on your desktop or your iPhone. The fat ones you'll get to over the Internet just like you do from your laptop. Of course with all of this there's the whole usability thing. Even if I did get Excel to run on my iPhone I'm pretty sure I'm not going to use it for anything but viewing.

    There's still a long way to go with all of this. Cloud, ubiquitous client virtualization, etc all will mature over the next 3 years in my opinion. They'll get shaped by people like yourself coming back to us and saying, "hey, idiots...did you think about XYZ". That feedback is critical to VMware's success so keep it coming. Together we can define this and get it to work.
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