Mobile Virtual Environments: The Opportunity for Guest Applications and Operating Systems

• Publication date: January 2012

The explosive growth of mobile applications and waning battle between application ecosystems are creating a new reality in the mobile industry. Apple and Google have effectively prevailed in the platform war, leaving OEMs without access to these ecosystems at a significant disadvantage. Users are also demanding a wide choice of innovative applications on all their digital devices: smartphones used for work and personal use, tablets and e-books, i...

The explosive growth of mobile applications and waning battle between application ecosystems are creating a new reality in the mobile industry. Apple and Google have effectively prevailed in the platform war, leaving OEMs without access to these ecosystems at a significant disadvantage. Users are also demanding a wide choice of innovative applications on all their digital devices: smartphones used for work and personal use, tablets and e-books, in their cars and on their TVs.
OEMs need to provide Android apps to their customers but are hesitant to relinquishing control of their branded experience and services. Enterprises want to drive productivity by providing their employees access to slick consumer applications alongside secure enterprise apps on smartphones and tablets of their choice. Virtualization solutions can solve these challenges by creating environments that are independent of the underlying OS or hardware in which to run foreign applications and guest operating systems.
This report analyzes four virtualization technologies that all take different approaches and are designed to address notably different markets. These technologies include:
·      Mobile hypervisors
·      Secure application containers
·      Thin client and cloud solutions
·      Application virtual machines
Enterprises that are embracing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies are looking to virtualization solutions to protect enterprise data on employee owned devices. Over the past few years, mobile hypervisors that have been used to reduce hardware costs are now being repurposed to enable two segregated application operating systems on one device. Containerized application solutions, thin client and cloud solutions are enabling the separation of consumer and enterprise applications within the operating system protecting sensitive enterprise data. The emergence of virtualization technologies to help manage BYOD policies will lead to new competition prompting important strategic decisions for established mobile enterprise software vendors. As this market shifts from managing devices to securing enterprise applications and data, mobile device management vendors and mobile enterprise application platform vendors will have to embrace emerging technologies to stay relevant. With promising technologies such as type 1 hypervisor based solutions still on the horizon, providers will have to weigh their current investments against their long term technical roadmap.
OEMs are deploying application virtual machines, or more specifically, the Dalvik virtual machine on non-Android devices to run Android applications. This strategy allows OEMs to leverage the robust Android ecosystems without having to relinquish control of the user experience to Google. These devices will run Android applications side by side with Native and HTML5 applications in a seamless interface, increasing developer flexibility and driving innovation. We are forecasting over 508 million non-Android devices to ship in 2016 which will run Android applications. Beyond traditional mobile devices, Dalvik virtual machines are being evaluated to run applications on in-vehicle infotainment systems (IVI) and set top boxes. This trend will have important strategic implications as mobile applications migrate to these new platforms. Internet players are pushing into the TV content distribution market and virtualization solutions will be an important tool for entrenched players defending their market. Separating the Dalvik virtual machine from the Android stack will also loosen Google’s grip on application distribution and compromise its ability to manage fragmentation in the Android ecosystem. While fragmentation will be a challenge for the industry, creating new cross device opportunities for Android developers will help improve application economics, which in turn will strengthen the ecosystem in the long run.

Companies Mentioned

ACL
Alien Dalvik
Android
Android Player
Apple TV
Codezero
Dalvik VM
Divide
Dynamics
Googe TV
iOS
iPad
Java
Limo/Tizen
Meego
Mobile Horizon
Mobile Virtulization Layer
OKL4
Pocket Cloud
Safezone
Symbian
Toggle
vLogix Mobile
VLX
WebOS
Windows Mobile

Wireless Technology Industry

Table of Contents

Introduction 1
Market Opportunity 1
The Enterprise Opportunity 2
The Cross Device Opportunity 2
Technology Trends 2
Hypervisors 2
Application Containers 4
Application or Process Virtual Machines (VM) 5
Streaming UI’s & Thin Client Solutions 7
Cloud Solutions 7
Market Drivers & Barriers 8
Developer Economics 8
Emergence of Cloud Computing 8
IP Litigation 9
Market Opportunities 9
Enterprise Market 10
Cross Platform
Security
Ease of Installation
Performance and Device Level Functionality
IT Control
Diverse Enterprise Market
Mobile Handset Market 13
Other Consumer Mobile Device Market 14
IVI-In Vehicle Infotainment Market 15
Cable Network Operators 15
Market Strategies 16
Forecast & Strategic Outlook 17
BYOD Market Forecast 17
Type 2 Hypervisors and Container Apps
Type 1 Hypervisors
BYOD Market Strategic Outlook 21
MEAP and MDM Players Will Struggle With Strategic Dilemmas
Cohabitation of MDM, MEAP, and Sandbox Solutions Will Be Short Lived and Players Will Compete 21
In The Long Run Red Bend Wins In BYOD Solutions Market
Virtual Machines Market Forecast 22
Smartphones
Tablets
Automobiles
Set Top Boxes
Virtual Machine Strategic Outlook 26
Changing Dynamics in Developer Ecosystem
Delvik & HTML5 Value Proposition Overlap
OEMs will Focus More on Core Functionality to Differentiate
Fragmentation Will Grow in Android
Android Wins and Looses
Virtualization Trend Strategic Outlook 27
Carrier Opportunities
How Will Apple React to This Trend
Vendor Profiles 28
Enterproid 28
Overview
Mobile Virtualization Offerings
Competitive Advantages
Competitive Challenges
Good Technologies 30
Overview
Mobile Virtualization Offerings
Competitive Advantages
Competitive Challenges
Myriad Group 31
Overview
Mobile Virtualization Offerings
Competitive Advantages
Competitive Challenges
Open Kernel Labs 33
Overview
Mobile Virtualization Offerings
Competitive Advantages
Competitive Challenges
Open Mobile World Wide 34
Overview
Mobile Virtualization Offerings
Competitive Advantages
Competitive Challenges
Red Bend Software 35
Overview
Mobile Virtualization Offerings
Competitive Advantages
Competitive Challenges
Research in Motion 37
Overview
Mobile Virtualization Offerings
Competitive Advantages
Competitive Challenges
VMWare 38
Overview
Mobile Virtualization Offerings
Competitive Advantages
Competitive Challenges

Table of Figures

Table 1 – Mobile Hypervisor Vendors 4
Table 2 – Application Container Vendors 5
Table 3 – Delvik VM Players 6
Table 4 – Thin Client and Streaming Vendors 7
Table 5 – Virtualization Technology Opportunity Matrix 10
Table 6 – Virtualization Technology Business Models 17

Figure 1 – Type 1 Hypervisor Architecture 3
Figure 2 – Type 2 Hypervisor Architecture 3
Figure 3 – Application Containers Architecture 5
Figure 4 – Application Virtual Machines Architecture 6
Figure 5 – Virtualization Implementation Architecture 12
Figure 6 – Total Enterprise Virtualization Users Forecast: 2012-2016 18
Figure 7 – Total Users Application Container and Type 2 Hypervisors Forecast: 2012-2016 18
Figure 8 – Total Revenues Type 2 Hypervisor and Container App Solutions Market Forecast: 2012- 201 20
Figure 9 – Device Shipments with Type 1 Hypervisors Forecast and Install Base 2012-2016 20
Figure 10 – Total Devices Shipping with Delvik VM and Total Addressable Market Forecasts: 2012-2016 23
Figure 11 – Smartphones Shipping with Delvik VM and Total Addressable Market Forecasts: 2012-2016 23
Figure 12 – Tablets Shipping with Delvik VM and Total Addressable Market Forecasts: 2012-2016 24
Figure 13 – Automobiles Shipping with IVI Systems Featuring Delvik VMs and Total Addressable Market Forecasts: 2012-2016 25
Figure 14 – Set Top Boxes Shipping With Delvik VM and Total Addressable Market Forecasts: 2012-2016 26