Development Suggestion - Dual Phone Support

[peter.albers.famil]

Many companies provide a "business use" cell phone, which results in staff carrying two phone devices at all times... their personal phone, plus the business use one. This is an inconvenience that customers would be happy to do without!

A unique feature that could set Ubuntu cell phones apart, would be the ability to simultaneously function as two different cell phones, eliminating the need to carry multiple devices.

In other words, if there was a way to take an "image" of the personal phone's SIM / configuration, and run it as a virtual machine on the Ubuntu handset. Calls made from the "business" vm would use the companies business minutes/data plan, while the "personal" vm would use the employee's personal minutes/data plan.

Please someone, make sure that R&D is made aware of this idea and give it some consideration. Even if phones today don't have the horsepower to do this, in time they certainly will. I'd like Ubuntu to get this done before some evil corporation patents the idea.

[3rdalbum]

Dual-sim phones are already used for this. It doesn't require a virtual machine.

Other workplaces use the BYOD (bring your own device) concept.

What are the advantages in your idea and why does it require a whole virtualised operating system?

[grahammechanical]

This year someone at some computer show demonstrated such a phone. They were not part of some 'evil corporation.' I saw it demonstrated in a BBC TV program. It can be used for Company use and then switched for personal use. If you think about it the 'evil corporations do not want the drop in profits that would come from selling a two in one device. The point that you are missing is that Canonical, the supporter of Ubuntu, is a software company and the present owner has no intention of turning it into a hardware company. Canonical is developing Ubuntu into a 3 or 4 in one OS. Buy a Ubuntu superphone and with the right accessoories it can become a Tablet or a PC. And other thing, this is a Ubuntu Community forum. It is offically recognised and supported as such by Canonical but it is not a communication link to Canonical. That is not part of the purpose of this forum.

[Bucky Ball]

... this is a Ubuntu Community forum. It is offically recognised and supported as such by Canonical but it is not a communication link to Canonical. That is not part of the purpose of this forum.

Correct. Canonical staff don't frequent the forum and we're just a bunch of members and volunteer forum staff. You would have more impact telling it here.:

http://www.ubuntu.com/phone

I think the dual-sim phone kinda covers your idea, though.

[ian-weisser]

Google (and several other companies) already offer free call-forwarding from one phone number to another.
Or you can do it yourself with asterix.

[peter.albers.famil]

There are a limited number of dual-sim phone models available. I think there are many potential advantages in a software only "virtual dual sim phone" implementation, if such a thing could be accomplished.

[peter.albers.famil]

Thank you to all those who replied. I'm sorry to hear that Canonical staff don't frequent the forum.
I'll see if I can track down a more appropriate forum to generate further discussion.

[ian-weisser]

I don't think you will find a better forum for discussion.
The community used to run brainstorm.ubuntu.com from for discussing such ideas. We closed it about six months ago.
A very few hardware ideas (and there were thousands) were implemented by Canonical. None were implemented in the way proposed or discussed, and the Brainstorm proposal was not the genesis of any hardware project - merely a coincidence.

Most hardware and new-business ideas have many of the same shortcomings:
- No survey of technical feasibility (is it possible at all?)
- No estimate of the resources needed to create the product (cost)
- No market analysis to determine likely revenue

Nobody is going to do that research for you for a niche product.
Especially Canonical, which is not a hardware company and seemingly not interested in becoming one.

If you want to investigate if it's possible at all, join the Ubuntu Phone developers mailing list(s) and forums. Search and lurk, and finally ask a few questions about how Ubuntu phone handles SIM cards.