Starting November 2007, we had signs that multiple entities (virtualization vendors, phone vendors, embedded CPU vendors) are working to bring hardware virtualization to mobile devices like cell phones and PDAs.
The fact that Samsung is porting Xen on the ARM processor should be more than enough. If not here another confirmation.
The CTO of Xen and Vice President of Advanced Products at Citrix and Chairman of Xen.org, Ian Pratt, gave an interview to CNET yesterday and said:
Q: As vice president for advanced products, what are you looking at?
A: Client virtualization is an area I’m spending time on. It’s an area where Xen leads–despite some bluster from VMware. It’s an area where we can make a difference, and it will be driven by application delivery.There will be virtualized smartphones on the market in the not-too-distant future. ARM has built virtualization into its processors; they didn’t put that in for fun.
Virtualization in the embedded market will follow a similar playbook to virtualization in the x86 market. Client virtualization is going to happen quite quickly. It won’t go through the phase where users have to choose their virtualization solution, because virtualization won’t exist as a category. It will be part of the device when you buy it…