What if your monitor could be plugged into your phone? What if you really didn't need a laptop, since your phone's CPU could power most applications, and draw data from the cloud?
That's the premise of the "nirvana phone," a reference design co-authored by virtualization giant Citrix and by the Open Kernel Labs to do just that.
Basically, the phone is less a phone and more of an I/O layer and hypervisor laid atop the existing phone operating system. The OK Labs technology uses Bluetooth to connect to a keyboard, and uses a wired connection to plug in an external display. The phone's native applications then can be accessed via the larger display. Although the nirvana phone can connect via Bluetooth via a mouse, a nifty demonstration video (embedded after the jump) showed the phone's touchscreen actually serving as a trackpad.
If this sounds familiar, then you're right, sort of.
The Celio Redfly Mobile Companion, which PCMag.com has reviewed, was released last year. That device served as a dumb netbook of sorts, allowing your BlackBerry to take advantage of the larger display and keyboard, while using the PDA's data capabilities and storage.
As the Blackberry did, the Citrix/OK Labs team is eying the enterprise first.
"The nirvana phone takes smart phones to the next level by bringing M2E from paradigm to platform and ultimately to product," noted Chris Fleck, vice president of Community and Solutions Development, Citrix, in a statement. "As HD video and other capabilities come on line in mobile chipsets, Citrix and OK Labs are working together to give OEMs a clear path to building handsets that meet the needs of IT organizations and mobile workers alike, delivering virtual desktops and applications to virtualized mobile devices."
So far, no phone manufacturers have announced support for the nirvana phone design. I doubt Microsoft, with its own virtualization solution, will partner. Will Apple, in an enterprise play? Or would Google, hoping to cash in on the same market? It seems like a potential direction for smartphones; we'll have to see if Citrix will be the company showing the way.
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