Bitzer Mobile presents new twist on mobile application virtualization

In my series on the challenges and opportunities inherent in Context Aware Computing, I showed how the Wireless Abstraction Library (WALL) markup language when used in conjunction with the Wireless Universal Resource File (WURFL) database can build web apps that will work on almost any mobile device. The combination of the WURFL and WALL create a powerful tool for the building new mobile-ready applications, but the approach while ingenious is far from perfect. Reliance on the ability of the endpoint device to successfully render a web application’s user interface as its designer intended is a high risk strategy resulting in either a compromised user experience for all or different interfaces based on each device’s capabilities.

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Even if the user interface could be displayed equally well on every device, the challenges imposed by the different user interface conventions used across different mobile operating systems remain. Presenting an Apple iPhone owner with an Android-like user interface would not be well received; neither would offering an iOS-like interface to the owner of a PalmOS powered device. What is needed is the means delivering the right user interface to the right device, but without the complexity of coding a separate interface for each device type and then using the WURFL to ensure that the right interface is presented.

Which brings me to this morning’s announcement from Silicon Valley startup Bitzer Mobile, who has just launched its new Enterprise Virtualized Mobility solution (EVM). EVM is Bitzer’s answer to the problem of providing managed access to enterprise applications from mobile end points with the added benefit of delivering the user experience appropriate to a mobile device’s user interface guidelines. All without touching a line of the original application’s code.

Bitzer achieves this by inserting a virtualization layer into existing enterprise web applications that delivers them to a virtual container on mobile devices. The virtual container is deployed as a native mobile app for each supported platform presenting the enterprise web app as if it were written specifically for the mobile OS. Bitzer also provides a comprehensive enterprise management platform to control access to applications delivered to the virtual container.

The Bitzer mobile virtualization layer solution ‘translates’ enterprise web apps into a format suitable for delivery to the virtual container using Bitzer’s Mobile HTML Attributes specification which is available for download from Bitzer. Bitzer claim that prototype applications can be developed and deployed in less than a week. One benefit of this approach is that mobile applications need not follow the format of their desktop equivalents, this should be a distinct benefit for mobile users who are likely to want to modify workflows to make them more suitable for interaction on mobile devices.  IT will benefit from this approach as well, mobile platforms still lag far behind desktop platforms when it comes to application deployment and end point management tools. Not to mention the retraining costs associated with learning to develop applications for multiple new platforms. By following Bitzer’s lead, Enterprise IT can avoid many of these impediments to progress and concentrate instead on addressing business needs with minimal delay. The Bitzer mobile virtualization layer also enables multiple applications to be merged and presented through a single mobile interface further increasing the flexibility of applications created for the mobile container. Bitzer offer the mobile virtualization container as a free download and will license the platform for $100 per user per year, with discounts for multiple orders.

EVM has one final additional benefit that should be significant interest to corporate data security specialists. EVM isolates corporate data within the Bitzer app, separating corporate data from personal data on employee owned mobile devices and granting IT administrators the ability to remotely wipe corporate apps and data from employee owned devices without having any access employee owned apps and data. In some respects this is similar to the control offered by RIM’s recently announced BlackBerry Balance although RIM does not offer IT Bitzer’s multi-platform management and app authoring capabilities. This ability to control corporate data on employee owned devices is becoming increasing important as Bring You Own Device (BYOD) programs grow in popularity.

One thing that is missing from the conversation so far is the employee’s voice in demanding that IT not be granted any right of access to the employee’s own data when implementing such a program.  As BYOD takes off, employees need to be aware of the other side of the coin and to seek assurances that their rights to privacy to protection of continuity of access to their own data will be maintained if their employer sees fit to remotely wipe any corporate apps or data from the phone.