“Bring your own device (BYOD)” is a concept that scares a lot of technology and information security experts. Now, rather than simply controlling from end to end known machines, people bring all kinds of unknowns into the environment. While this BYOD concept hasn’t gone mainstream on the desktop side of the equation, when it comes to mobile devices, employees everywhere bring mobile devices back and forth to work every single day.
Recently, LG and VMware entered into a partnership that would install a VMware-provided virtualization layer on a mobile device. On top of this virtualization layer would run everything associated with the person’s work use of the mobile device. This could be a good way for organizations to support a person’s mobile device while not compromising organization security.
Obviously, there are other solutions out there that can be used for similar purposes, but they’re more application-focused as opposed to being a part of the device’s basic operation.
Although I’m not sure exactly how VMware plans to leverage LG’s place in the mobile device market, I can see a lot of potential in extending virtualization to mobile devices as a way to move to a BYOD model.