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Do 'multi-OS' smartphones have a future?

Wish you could run two different operating systems on your cell phone? In theory, it sounds cool, but in practice, is it?

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David Carnoy Executive Editor / Reviews
Executive Editor David Carnoy has been a leading member of CNET's Reviews team since 2000. He covers the gamut of gadgets and is a notable reviewer of mobile accessories and portable audio products, including headphones and speakers. He's also an e-reader and e-publishing expert as well as the author of the novels Knife Music, The Big Exit and Lucidity. All the titles are available as Kindle, iBooks, Nook e-books and audiobooks.
Expertise Mobile accessories and portable audio, including headphones, earbuds and speakers Credentials
  • Maggie Award for Best Regularly Featured Web Column/Consumer
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David Carnoy

This Photoshopped HTC 'dual' mobile would support multi-OS switching. NAK Design

A French fellow who goes by the handle Crazy Nawak e-mailed me some concept photos for a "multi-OS" smartphone from HTC that would allow you to switch between two operating systems. HTC already has the old HTC Touch Dual, but the "dual' in that phone stood for the combination of a slide-out keypad and a touch screen.

This fantasy model has a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor and runs both Windows Mobile 7 and Android 2.2 (see more photos here). Of course, plenty of people out there have already hacked Windows Mobile phones to run on Android--and even to dual-boot both operating systems (see video below).

As smartphones sport even more powerful processors, it seems like it wouldn't be that big a deal to swap smoothly between one OS and another on the same phone. And there's been some chatter in the past about companies like VMWare developing virtualization technology that would allow two operating systems to run simultaneously on a mobile device.

All that said, we're not sure how practical it really is. It might be interesting for corporations to be able to offer workers a personal phone and a work phone all in one device, with software separating the two environments. And perhaps Android and iPhone fanboys might finally get along with a dual-boot AndriPhone.

What do you guys think? Good idea or not?