Mobile World Congress News: VMware, Wyse, Cisco

Redefining Mobile at day two of the GSMA 2012 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Spain brought a keynote from Google's Eric Schmidt, and announcements from VMware and Telefonica, Wyse and Cisco.

Telefonica to launch Dual Persona service powered by VMware.  Telefónica Digital and VMware (VMW). announced the launch of the new Telefónica Dual Persona service.  Powered by VMware Horizon Mobile, the new service will provide a simple way for IT departments to securely provision, manage and de-provision a corporate mobile workspace to an employee’s Android device over-the-air, while enabling the employee to better retain the privacy and control of their personal mobile environments. Much more powerful mobile devices coupled with an significant increases in business ready mobile applications has resulted in the growing need for companies to manage device lifecycles and the provisioning of mobile applications used by employees. The dual persona support on Android devices will join the Telefónica Cloud Computing catalog to help companies more effectively manage their databases, virtual desktops (PCs) and applications by offering easy to consume cloud-based services. "Powered by VMware Horizon Mobile, Telefónica Dual Persona service will enable enterprises to securely customize and manage an employee’s corporate mobile workspace in isolation from their personal smartphone environment," said Brian Byun, Vice President and General Manager, End-User Computing, Mobile for VMware. "We are excited to bring this technology to market with Telefónica and Samsung.  Horizon Mobile embraces personal freedom and enhances employee productivity by delivering a preconfigured, device-independent corporate mobile workspace that is customized to an employee’s responsibilities."

Wyse launches Client Infrastructure Software as a Service. Wyse Technology announced an initiative to enable IT organizations to easily and confidently embrace the consumerization of IT with a holistic cloud-based device management service. Codenamed Project Stratus it is intended to provide IT administrators with an intelligent and dynamic cloud-based console to securely manage and enable corporate access to any device, regardless if that device is owned by the company or by the individual. Wyse gained mobile device management (MDM) expertise through their November 2011 acquisition of Trellia and is now combining that with Wyse's management expertise for a breakthrough SaaS offering. "Enabling IT organizations to provide users with simple, secure access to corporate assets has always been a core focus at Wyse; which is why customers trust us to manage over 200 million users daily from our cloud clients," said Hector Angulo, Product Manager at Wyse.  "Project Stratus extends this secure provisioning and management to all the new devices flooding the enterprise, providing for the first time a one-stop shop for device management in the Post-PC era.” The capabilities of Project Stratus are expected to be available by mid 2012.

Cisco unveils 'small cell' solution.  Cisco (CSCO) introduced the industry's first carrier-grade, end-to-end Wi-Fi infrastructure to deliver Next-Generation Hotspots (NGH). The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA)-approved NGH technology is embedded into Cisco's service provider Wi-Fi portfolio and is designed to provide mobile users with a seamless Wi-Fi experience. Cisco's new Small Cell Gateway, based on the Cisco ASR 5000 Series Mobile Multimedia Core Router, will enable operators to manage subscriber and service information while integrating 2G/3G/4G LTE and femtocell (licensed) networks with Wi-Fi (unlicensed) networks, to deliver seamless experiences across multiple heterogeneous access networks.  "We are now entering the post-macrocell era, where small cells also will play a critical role in delivering the next-generation mobile Internet," said John Chambers, Cisco chairman and CEO.  "Existing mobile network infrastructures simply cannot sustain the growth we're seeing on their own. Tomorrow's mobile Internet must span multiple networks and deliver seamless and highly secure mobile experiences.  This requires an architectural approach powered by a cloud-intelligent network of networks.  Cisco and our service provider partners see tremendous opportunity as we together build out these networks and empower the mobile Internet generation."