According to the report by PC World, Virtual Smartphone is an app that offers businesses a secure solution for communicating and sharing data.
The report quotes Neal Foster, Dell's General Manager for Mobility Solutions, talking about how they want their app to be compatible with all devices. "We're device agnostic, enabling any compatible tablet or smartphone, and we're also form-factor agnostic, as we run on on any range of display sizes," Foster says.
App Features and Functionality
According to the Cloud Times report, the Virtual Smartphone app works around the issues and limitations of other BYOD solutions. Dell's app is able to detect and distinguish between personal and business calls with the help of Vonage. The app also does several things that meet BYOD safety standards. The PC World report enumerates these, including:
ñ making and receiving secure calls and texts through an assigned Vonage VoIP number
ñ locking out a user's personal number, letting only business communications come through
ñ creating and saving business numbers in the Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory
ñ pushing voice calls to available Wi-Fi networks
According to the report, Foster further adds that the app will not interfere with any personal activities done by an employee on the device. They gave the use of the device's camera as an example, stating that images taken while taking a business call through the app will be saved only on the phone's camera roll.
A Little Too Late?
A report from InfoWorld points out that while Dell's Virtual Smartphone may offer a rich variety of functionalities for a managed business solution, it may have come too late. Their report notes that while Dell offers streamlined billing for a separate service, most businesses today are already looking for streamlined solutions that integrate with existing systems well. Additionally, businesses will have to entrust all of their information almost exclusively to Dell-managed solution, as well as to Vonage.
Dell's Virtual Smartphone app will be available in October for Android 4.0 and above and for iOS 6 and 7. PC World reports that Dell executives promise support for iOS 8 and Windows Phone 8 soon. The plans for the service will start at $19.99 per line per month for up to 1,000 voice minutes with unlimited texts. Office and cloud storage options from Microsoft will also be available as add-ons to the plans.
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