DEMO: Parallels launches mobile virtualization app for iPad and iPhone
Parallels is one of 70 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2010 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After our selection, the companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.
Context & Ripple Effects
This launch is the mobile extension of a desktop franchise Parallels has been building since it shipped software that ran Windows and Mac OS side-by-side on one machine in 2006, followed by the company's decision to drop the SWsoft name entirely when it renamed itself Parallels at the end of 2007. Presenting at DEMO Fall 2010 puts that desktop virtualization brand squarely onto Apple's fastest-growing devices.
The timing also lands inside a window a rival drew first: VMware said in May 2009 that it expected mobile virtualization to arrive in 2010. Parallels getting an iPad and iPhone app on stage this week means the prediction is being contested by the company that owns much of the Mac-side desktop virtualization market.
First-order effects
- iPad and iPhone owners gain a sanctioned way to run non-native operating systems or desktop sessions on their devices, giving Parallels an installed-base beachhead on hardware it previously only served indirectly through its Mac desktop product.
Second-order effects
- VMware, which publicly pegged 2010 as the year of mobile virtualization, now faces its chief Mac-virtualization competitor claiming that ground first, forcing it to accelerate or differentiate its own mobile roadmap.
Third-order effects
- If mobile virtualization proves out on iOS-class hardware, hypervisor vendors shift from selling per-seat desktop licenses to competing over which platforms and app-store policies they can run under — with Apple's control of what iOS allows becoming the binding constraint on the whole category.
The trend: Virtualization is migrating from the desktop down into phones and tablets, with the Mac-market leaders racing to define the mobile-hypervisor category in 2010.