Chicago, Ill. - Virtualization provider Open Kernel Labs and enterprise desktop/server connectivity specialist Citrix Systems, Inc. have teamed up to provide a set of services for delivering enterprise applications to mobile devices based on mobile-to-enterprise virtualization (M2E).

According to Steve Subar, President and CEO of OK Labs, this strategy builds on Citrix's penetration of the corporate enterprise market with its desktop connectivity software and the fact that OKI's OKL4 microvisor virtualization manager is deployed on more than 300 million mobile phones worldwide.

He said the combined technologies, including Citrix application delivery infrastructure and the OKL4 mobile phone virtualization solution, will provide easily deployed and securely managed access to enterprise and desktop applications from wireless devices.

Together, the two companies think they can provide a seamless mechanism by which corporate mobile users can via a single hand held device move between corporate and personal worlds without risk of compromising company data, applications, or networks.

Extending application delivery to mobile devices, said Subar, is the next logical play for virtualization, one that highlights tangible benefits for mobile phone users.

"As virtualization reaches out from the server room to make the desktop just another enterprise infrastructure asset, these handheld devices will be next," said Rachel Chalmers, research analyst at 451 Group.

"They're easily capable of functioning as mobile enterprise application end-points. They're going to need exactly the same kinds of security, policy enforcement and central manageability as anything else in the modern, Web 2.0-friendly, regulatory-compliant enterprise."

To learn more, go to www.ok-labs.com or www.citrix.com.