The brave new world of gadgets with limitless and irritation-limiting potential depends on virtualization.

It's going to be impossible to exploit 3G and WiMAX and VoIP and Android, for starters, without virtualization, not to mention the other promised front-end Internet devices and the sheer infrastructure of the whole edifice.

The new multi-core silicon and chipsets can't manage the new services without virtualization. They need it for performance, cost, customization, security and manageability.

So it may be of more than just passing interest to note that VirtualLogix - which you may or may not remember as Jaluna - is currently holding three aces in its hand, namely, Cisco, Intel and Texas Instruments, all of which have now invested money in the little French company and its real-time virtualization skills.

If things keep breaking this way, we'll eventually be talking de facto standard.

TI is the latest to ante up some undisclosed amount as part of a collaboration agreement aligning VirtualLogix' virtualization roadmap with its big friend's embedded application-specific multi-core semiconductor direction.

TI says virtualization is letting it expand its DSP technologies beyond traditional applications.

VirtualLogix has recently come out with software for TI's high-performance multi-core DSPs and under an earlier arrangement dating back a few months TI is supposed to ship VirtualLogix' software in its Digital Video development kit.

Besides TI, Cisco and Intel, VirtualLogix also has investments from Atlas Ventures, Esprit Capital Partners and Index Ventures.