We are very excited to announce VMware Horizon Mobile Manager (HMM) at VMworld 2011.  HMM is a product that will allow enterprise IT administrators to create, provision, monitor and manage a corporate phone that will be running on an employee-owned smart phone.  In this blog, I will provide context for this product, highlight some of its key capabilities and tie HMM back to our vision for the post-PC era.

Background
As part of our mobile strategy, we had been working on bringing virtualization to mobile devices with an initial focus on one use case - allowing enterprises to support employee-owned smart phones without compromising security, auditability and manageability of the corporate content that is present on the employee’s device.  We demoed VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP) that is the key underlying technology that enables us to support two phones in one - one phone for personal use and another phone for work use but both phones on a single physical phone.

From an employee perspective, they are happy because they can now use their favorite personal device to accomplish work without having to carry two phones.  But how does an IT administrator manage the corporate side of your phone?  How would the admin create, provision, manage the work phone for you?  Let me introduce you to VMware Horizon Mobile Manager.

Key capabilities of VMware Horizon Mobile Manager
HMM is a web-based product that allows IT administrators to comprehensively manage the lifecycle of the work phone from creating it to wiping it.  The key capabilities of HMM are:

• Use templates to create a work phone
  

   

• Leverage policy management engine to define what the user can and cannot do in the work phone
  

   

• Provision the work phone over-the-air
  
  
• Review health of the deployment and vital stats from a dashboard
  

   

• Push applications over-the-air to the work phone from the app catalog
  

   

• Lock or wipe to de-provision the work phone

Come to the MVP breakout session (EUC 2956) on Tuesday at 12 noon to see the HMM live.

Post-PC era vision
As we look at how enterprise computing is evolving, it is clear that computing is no longer just about PCs and Windows.  The ball-and-chain relationship between users and their PCs is broken.  Smartphones and tablets are fast becoming not only tier 1 platforms but in some cases, they are the preferred devices that employees are using.  The number of smartphones and tablets sold will exceed the number of PCs sold for the first time in 2011 but the shift has already happened in that the amount of time we spend on non-PC devices is already higher than what we spend on PCs.

In addition to the increasing diversity of devices, there is increasing diversity in the kinds of applications we consume as well - SaaS, mobile applications, etc.  Needless to say, this is a hard environment for IT to manage.

Our vision for this new paradigm is to allow IT to manage users, not devices.  Each employee has multiple devices and devices come and go so that cannot be the unit of management anymore.  VMware Horizon is our umbrella initiative that will allow administrators to provision any application to any device that a user happens to use.

We introduced Horizon Applications Manager (HAM) earlier this year to allow administrators to provision and manage SaaS applications.  We are now adding the ability to provision Windows applications so that HAM can now support SaaS and Windows applications.  Horizon Mobile Manager adds mobile application and workspace management so together Horizon now covers SaaS, Windows and mobile applications.

We are excited to announce the availability of VMware Zimbra for Android (VZA) as a fling.

A fling is a short-term thing, not a serious relationship but a fun one. Likewise, the tools that are offered as a fling from VMware Labs are intended to be played with and explored. None of them are guaranteed to become part of any future product offering and there is no support for them. They are, however, totally free for you to download and play around with!

Today’s fling - the VMware Zimbra for Android - is a native Android collaboration application that allows you to access your email, calendar, contacts, tasks and files from any Android device, specifically smartphones and tablets.  VZA supports any Microsoft ActiveSync compliant email server and also supports the VMware Zimbra Collaboration Server (ZCS).  With ZCS as the backend, VZA offers several additional Zimbra-only features such as Briefcase, Saved Searches, etc. that are not available in any of the Android email applications in the market today.

Some Context...
At VMware we fundamentally believe that the post-PC era is upon us.  This new era is changing many of the entrenched computing paradigms that we all grew up with.  A key change is the breaking of the traditional "ball and chain" relationship we had with our PCs.  We now carry multiple devices (laptops - PCs and Macs, tablets, smartphones) and sometimes multiples of each because we often prefer the personal one rather than the corporate-issued one.

So, it is increasing becoming important for users to use any device at any time from anywhere without compromising required functionality and usability.  In that context, we are committed to providing multiple interfaces for all our products and while this will not occur overnight, we are progressing well:

• We launched vCMA in 2009 to allow users to manage private clouds through a browser from any mobile device.
• We released a native iPad app in March this year that offers a much richer user experience to manage vSphere deployments.
• We released VMware View for iPads so users can get to their desktops from iPads.  Stay tuned for more details about our View for Android plans.
• And, there are several other initiatives along these lines so there’s more coming.

VMware Zimbra for Android
VMware Zimbra for Android is a native Android email client for Zimbra and any ActiveSync compliant servers.  This one became increasingly interesting to the VMware Labs team as we started rolling out Zimbra across VMware and many of employees carry Android devices found existing email clients sub-par.  So, we decided to build the best possible client ourselves.  Since some of our users were still using Exchange, we decided to support Exchange (and other ActiveSync compliant email server) as well.

Rather than read through dozens of features, check out the short overview video we recorded.

You can download the fling at: http://labs.vmware.com/flings/vza.  Give it a spin!  We welcome your feedback in our discussion forum at: http://www.zimbra.com/forums/vmware-zimbra-android/.

Fling Notes...
VZA was tested with Microsoft Exchange 2003, 2007 and 2010 and Zimbra Collaboration Suite 6.x and 7.x.  It supports Android 2.x and 3.x.

Quick notes:

• VZA requires an ActiveSync enabled email client to be present on your Android device.
• Since VZA is distributed as a fling and available outside the Android Marketplace, you will need to enable your device to install applications from "unknown sources."  This option is typically accessible from Settings->Applications on your Android device.

There are significant changes brewing that will have profound impact on the enterprise IT market for decades to come. As the proliferation of mobile devices and adoption of cloud computing increases, there is a good chance that much of the conventional wisdom will be thrown out as new paradigms and new participants play an increasingly important role in enterprise IT.  In a two-part blog, I will explore trends and discuss the potential implications for enterprises.

The Old Way
When PCs first started getting popular, they were mostly used for work-related activities within the confines of your workplace.  Eventually these devices became affordable and usable with enough interesting consumer apps to show up in homes as well.  Two significant trends came out of this model:

• From a technology standpoint, the dominant stack was WinTel – Microsoft Windows running on Intel x86 processors.  Both vendors were hugely successful in this wave and even today still continue to reap the benefits.  An entire ecosystem developed around the WinTel platform and IIRC, I heard something along the lines of, for every dollar Microsoft made on Windows; $18 was generated for the ecosystem.  Small wonder, then, that WinTel became the platform.
• From a purchasing and process standpoint, enterprises bought computers and software directly from the vendors or from resellers and often times bought professional services to install, deploy and maintain their assets onsite.

The New Way
The old model was successful for nearly three decades but employee-owned devices and cloud computing have kicked off a profound shift that is turning things topsy-turvy for CIOs.

Apple’s Macs, iPhones and iPads are huge consumer successes and increasingly are finding their way into the enterprise.  Interestingly, many of these devices are employee-owned.  So, rather than enterprises buying devices and mandating technology stacks for their employees, the employees are purchasing end points and forcing enterprises to support them.  The inmates are running the asylum!  So much so that one CIO recently said, “Enterprises buying PCs and phones for their employees is so 20th century!  We are fully expecting a vast majority of our employees to use their own PCs and phones and tablets within 12-18 months.”

Here’s where it starts getting interesting…  Many of the devices that consumers are buying (smartphones and tablets) are not running Microsoft Windows, nor are they leveraging Intel’s x86 processors.  Nearly 100% of smartphones and the vast majority of successful tablets utilize the ARM processor.  So the question is, is ARM the new Intel?  ZDnet’s recent blog on ARM is definitely worth a read.  (I do realize that unlike Intel, ARM does not make the actual processors.  Vendors QCOM, TI, Broadcom, nVidia, Samsung, Apple, etc. license ARM technology and include their “special sauce” to develop actual ARM SoCs that handset OEMs purchase.  But, trying to say that Qualcomm/TI/Broadcom/nVidia/Samsung/Apple/etc. is the new Intel is just not that efficient or catchy.)

(Source: ZDNet blog referenced above.)

I was fascinated with the data below from 9to5mac.com that shows Apple’s revenues breakdown.  20% comes from Macs, which run on Intel x86 processors but the rest, a whopping 75%, comes from ARM devices and software/services sold to ARM devices.  Whoa!

Apple Sales: Dominated by the ARM processor.

Canalys recently published their worldwide smartphone market share information.  (See arsTechnica’s coverage here.)  Google’s Android is the dominant smartphone OS and if their success with smartphones is any indication, they will dominant on tablets as well.  Not sure what role Google Chrome OS will play quite yet, but is Google Android the new Microsoft Windows?

If ARM is the new Intel and if Google Android is the new Microsoft Windows, then is ARoogle (Google on ARM) the new WinTel for the 21st century?

Microsoft is now an ARM licensee and has shown a roadmap where Windows will run on ARM processors, but will it be too late?  Either way, there seems to be a new stack coming to life right in front of our eyes.

ARoogle: More than just a catchy name or a pretty logo!
(Courtesy of Courtney Skay)

In the next blog, I will talk about how Aroogle and cloud computing affect what and how enterprises buy software and services in the future.

Today we are very excited to announce a strategic relationship with LG to address enterprise mobility that spans a number of LG devices.  The first tangible collaboration will focus on LG smartphones where together we will enable enterprises to fully embrace employee-owned phones without compromising security and manageability of the corporate content.

By leveraging VMware mobile virtualization technologies, we will develop smartphones that offer multiple "profiles," one for personal use and another for corporate use.  Think of this as phone-in-phone or as gluing your personal phone to your corporate phone - you will get two numbers, two email/PIMs, two set of apps, etc.  The corporate profile will be fully managed phone environment with the enterprise IT group defining and enforcing what you can and cannot do on the corporate side.  The personal profile is unmanaged so you can do whatever you want in that environment. Win-win for both employees and employers!

Figure: "Screen shots running VMware’s mobile virtualization solution.  User can easily switch between isolated work and personal phones by pressing a Work VM icon shown \[above\] or Home icon.  This phone-in-a-phone implementation will allow two phone numbers to be used seamlessly on a single device."

There are a few significant trends in the mobile space that drive the need for such a solution:

1. Smartphones are the next PC: The fundamental role of a mobile phone is changing from being a communication device to an email appliance to a full-on computational device.  Users are now able to do things beyond checking emails/calendar/contacts with many already running a whole slew of applications such as CRM, inventory tracking, expense reporting, HR apps, etc. on their mobile phones.  So for all practical purposes, smartphones are the next generation PC - they won't have a keyboard or a mouse but certainly users will be able to do most of what they need from a mobile device.

Also, accordingly to the latest IDC reports, there will be more smartphones than PCs sold within two years.  It is fair to assume then that more applications, services and data will be consumed from smartphones than PCs.  As this happens, there will be an increased focus on security and manageability as smartphones become first-class and mission-critical devices.

2. SomeOldDude's Law:  Similar to Moore’s Law on x86 platforms, ARM processors are getting faster and cheaper by the day. Qualcomm, TI and others are already offering 1.5GHz dual-core ARM processors for mobile phones.  Most modern day smart phones have at least 512MB of RAM and that is likely to increase as well.  As evidenced today, users will use these devices for more than just checking emails or making phone calls.

3. Consumerization of IT:  The notion of an enterprise buying you a PC and a phone so you can work is becoming an old-school model since most of the millennial folks entering the work force now already have a laptop and a smartphone.  Often times, their personal devices are better than what the corporation provides them so expecting them to use outdated hardware/software is like sending them to Siberia in the middle of winter.  At the same time, many CEOs and CxOs are also bringing these devices to work because they like using them at home and actually prefer to use them at work as well.

It is no wonder then that many CIOs are seeing an increase in employee requests to use personal devices to access corporate content.  While corporate owned devices will not disappear any time soon, employee-owned devices will increase dramatically forcing enterprises to figure out a way to safely and securely provision the right applications, data, services and management policies onto employee-owned devices.

When you put all the above together, you will find that employees will want to run more enterprise applications on their powerful personal smartphones but enterprises will continue to worry about securing and managing enterprise content on these devices.  This is an area where virtualization can help in a significant manner.

Timing, Pricing and Availability

LG and VMware are together engaged with a number of carriers across the globe in productizing this solution in 2011.  The specific devices and timing of when this will be available is dependent on a number of variables so we will keep you posted on that front.

In the mean time, if you are interested in finding out more information, please email mvpinfo@vmware.com.

VMworld 2010 was recently held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA.  We had record number of attendees – over 17,000 – making this one of the biggest IT events in the industry today.  This is a testament to the impact virtualization and VMware are having on how enterprises think about their data centers. Major props for our events team who worked tirelessly through the year to put on this event!

The first day keynotes by Paul and Steve were perhaps the best I’ve seen in a good while.  They clearly articulated our strategy and talked about the new stack for cloud computing.  I overheard a number of attendees saying things along the lines of, ‘ah, now I get why they bought SpringSource last year."  If you did not attend the conference, I highly encourage you to view the keynotes at www.vmworld.com.

Obviously, the focus was very much on Cloud Computing with most every single vendor talking about their role in this new computing paradigm. There is a lot of coverage on this already so I’m going to suppress the urge to add my two cents.

Talking about new paradigms, though... During day 2 at VMworld I had the privilege of having lunch with ten customers selected by our field teams. Very interesting conversations about how these folks are using our technologies and what they’d like to see in our products but the thing that caught my attention was that every one of them had an iPad. Ten out of ten! So I decided to keep an eye out for iPads and I was amazed by how many IT folks were using iPads. In that context, I’m very excited to talk about my new pet project - VMware vCenter on an iPad. Probably best to watch the video below...

We would love to hear your thoughts on this project. Will you use it? What features are most important to you?