Myriad Group announced Myriad Alien Dalvik, a version of the Dalvik virtual machine used by Android which will enable Android apps to run on devices powered by other platforms. The company said that “the launch opens up the Android experience to new audiences, generating new revenue opportunities for mobile operators, OEMs and app store owners.” It also said that the technology “enables the majority of Android applications to run unmodified.” Myriad is currently demonstrating Alien Dalvik on the MeeGo/Maemo platform, noting that it can support other platforms “to be developed depending on customers’ needs.”

Currently, most (but not all) apps for Android use a variant of Java, which run on a virtual machine – Dalvik. By offering a version of Dalvik for other platforms, apps can run on a wider range of devices, while device makers can extend the number of apps available for their devices by supporting Android-oriented products. In addition to MeeGo, it is certainly possible that Dalvik could be used to reinvigorate the Symbian OS app portfolio – as long as Nokia was willing to work with a developer community controlled by Google. It was also recently mooted that RIM would add Dalvik support to future versions of its BlackBerry platform.

Last year, Myriad announced its Dalvik Turbo virtual machine, which is intended to replace the existing Dalvik engine powering applications on the Android platform. This is said to increase application execution speed by up to three times, without a significant increase in the memory requirements of handsets.