Srinivas Krishnamurti, senior director for mobile solutions at Vmware has predicted that virtualisation software will be an important thing in the development of mobiles. He said that soon all phones could be operating apps on the same frontage but with different operating systems.

Speaking to Computer World he said that each icon could be, underneath the covers, running in a virtual machine or completely different operating system. Customers don't really care, you just want to get the app and run it.

This capability help those who carry two devices today. With virtualisation on the application processor of a smartphone, they might be able to run business applications and store business data on the iPhone or Android handset they bring from home, Krishnamurti said.

But Krishnamurti warned that mobile virtualisation isn't ready for the kind of explosion of popularity that began a few years ago for VMware's PC and server technology.

So far it has been difficult to find a compelling use case for the technology. Handset makers and carriers have to sign on to the concept, Krishnamurti said. Once everyone works out how to use the technology to make money then the industry will be laughing.