VMware Horizon Mobile, which enables employees to use a single Android device for both work personal purposes, now has two carrier partners: Verizon in the U.S. and Telefónica in Europe. But it’s still a long way from being viable as a mainstream enterprise solution.

VMware Horizon Mobile platform. It creates a special virtual machine on the employee’s device which can be used for work applications and data. If the employee leaves a company, the VM can be remotely wiped and the employee’s access to enterprise data and applications is revoked.

Services Angle

VMware now has partnerships with LG and Samsung on the devise side and Verizon and Telefónica on the carrier side. All Android phones from LG and Samsung sold by Verizon and Telefónica will have the VM player pre-installed. The downside is that it’s only available on phones that ship with it pre-installed because it requires root access to install (though theoretically, if enterprise admins had the APK file, they could root the phone themselves and install the app).

In order to be truly useful, the service needs to be universally available. Telling employees they can use their Android phones, but only new ones from LG and Samsung on Verizon won’t be all that helpful. VMware’s going to need to line up more partners for this, or figure out a better way of deploying the application. As it stands, enterprises will be better off using a mobile device management system that supports multiple platforms.