Rating: Secure means of sharing Android apps & data under iOS
On the NEC stand at MWC 2013, GoMobile News spotted what might initially have seemed to be a rather innocuous demonstration – of a virtual smartphone. Essentially NEC proved it was possible to run Android apps on an Apple iPad running under iOS. That might sound somewhat underwhelming until you appreciate the implications for organisations operating a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) scheme. The beauty of this solution is that the emulator is running in the cloud. So no data actually resides on the iPad itself. So employees have no chance of waltzing off with vital corporate data, for example.
The guy demonstrating the virtual smartphone on the NEC stand, suggested that one extremely useful application for this facility would be to run an Android email client.
The tablet’s owner would be perfectly able to read and reply to messages – or even view attachments, but once the session ended, there would be no messages saved back to the iPad.
NEC also suggested that it could even be worthwhile for organisations to develop their own in-house apps using Android which could therefore be run on all leading tablets and smartphones.
The really clever bit wasn’t just that the virtual smartphone recognised your input – touching the screen, etc.
On top of that, it can recognise when you re-orientate the tablet to better view an image.
GoMobile News believes that the virtual smartphone could easily remove the concerns of many IT managers who are faced with the task of letting employees utilise their own personal iPad in the workplace.
It would simply be impossible for them to walk away with any company secrets. Oh, and if you like, you could turn the iPad into a virtual telephone extension for making calls via the company switchboard.
