Citrix and OK Labs – one of my predictions is already in play

One of my predictions for 2010 was that either mobile hypervisors would breakthrough or a de-facto standard would emerge (perhaps Apple or RIM). Today Citrix and OK Labs announced that they will be working together to create a hypervisor and an appliance containing the Citrix receiver so that mobile phones can access hosted desktops and applications, independent of device hardware.

This announcement puts a cat among the pigeons by bringing Citrix into play and may be the catalyst that is needed to make a mobile hypervisor a reality. Previously VMware was the only desktop virtualization major with a mobile hypervisor, from the acquisition of Trango, but they had not made much progress in bringing it to market. Those of you familiar with how desktop virtualization developed will be aware that real innovation was only triggered when Citrix and VMware became directly competitive. From that point on development was rapid and lead to the desktop virtualization products we use today.

Perhaps the entrance of Citrix into the mobile hypervisor space will trigger a similar flood of innovation?

Martin Ingram