Motorola, Citrix and the Holy Grail – Updated

With sincerest apologies to Monty Python

At CES today Motorola announced the introduction of the first hyper-phone; the Motorola ATRIX 4G which will be available from AT&T. According to Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha, the ATRIX 4G is the fastest phone on the market. It is fitted out with Android 2.2 running on NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 SoC which sports a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 1 Ghz processor. The Atrix has 1GB of RAM, 16GB of Flash NAND storage, a “qHD” (640 x 360 pixels) display, a fingerprint scanner and a huge 1930 mAh battery, all in a 10.9mm-thick case.

This specification alone puts the ATRIX G4 right at the top of the pile with the kind of performance and security features that enterprise phone buyers need, but what really distinguishes the Atrix 4G from its competitors and moves it from smart phone to hyper-phone are a pair of optional accessories and a small piece of software.

Motorola ATRIX "laptop dock"

Motorola has developed two docking modules for the ATRIX. The Motorola Laptop Dock looks like an ultra slim laptop with keyboard, 11.6-inch display and battery mated together in an attractive lightweight ( 2.4 lbs) package that is only 13.9 mm thick – compare that to the MacBook Air’s 17 mm. The Laptop Dock battery provides up to 8 hrs continuous use and can recharge the phone’s internal cells for good measure. The second dock is a much simpler affair, providing 3 USB ports to connect a wired mouse, keyboard, flash memory sticks etc. and a standard HDMI video out connector delivering video output at a standard 1280×1024 resolution allowing the phone to be used with a full-size desktop (in the office) or HDTV (in the hotel room) display.  The phone has its own on-board Bluetooth and mini-HDMI connector, so the dock is not essential but it does provide a tidier implementation for desk use.

The special software shouldn’t come as a surprise given the title of this post; Motorola are including the Citrix Receiver for Android pre-installed on the phone.  Given the high specification of the phone, the integration of mouse keyboard and the two docking stations, almost 3 years after Chris Fleck (Citrix VP of Community and Solutions Development) first introduced me to the idea, the Motorola ATRIX G4 can claim the title of being the first commercial implementation of the Citrix Nirvana Phone.

To recap; the first iteration of the Nirvana Phone took at its core idea the notion that the then current generation of smart phones (think first generation iPhone) were approaching the level of performance needed to run the Citrix Receiver successfully. If that was the case then with the addition of a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard and a HD video out connection it would be quite possible for your phone to become your always connected mobile thin client. Of course it didn’t escape attention that if this idea took off it would most likely result in Citrix selling a few more XenApp and XenDesktop licenses (needless to say Microsoft will get their cut as well). ever since then Citrix have played a waiting game, watching as mobile processor performance and battery life have improved, continuing to work on the development of the Citrix Receiver and relentlessly pursuing possible partners with an interest in establishing a new class of enterprise communications platform. At the same time Citrix have watched as Open Kernel Labs has continued to refine its microvisor platform (now installed on over 1 billion mobile devices) and as VMware has continued to pursue its own mobile virtualization platform (MVP) recently announcing a partnership with LG.

Performance overall is excellent, as would be expected with the dual core CPU. The Web top interface allows the Citrix Receiver to be displayed windowed or in full-screen mode, and when windowed local Android applications can display alongside remote applications delivered by XenApp or XenDesktop. Chris Fleck has had the opportunity to play with the ATRIX for a while now and has released the following YouTube video of the ATRIX 4G/Citrix Nirvana Phone in operation.

There is still more work to be done; the full Nirvana Phone specification included support for a mobile hypervisor, something that the ATRIX still lacks. For the time being it is not clear if Motorola is ready to take that step, perhaps if the joint initiative between VMware and LG meets with success it will spur Motorola to  follow suit, but this is a good first step down the road.  My only disappointments so far that are that it is running the now slightly long in the tooth Android 2.2, an upgrade to the 3.0 Honeycomb release might be worthwhile; and that the Atrix 4G will be only available from AT&T which as every iPhone owner in New York or San Francisco knows is not the best carrier for a phone that is designed to push the limits of what the network can deliver.

I’d love to do a side by side comparison of  an iPhone 4 and an Atrix on San Francisco’s overloaded network to see which performs best.  Maybe I can get Motorola to lend me one for a couple of days…