Bipper's iSIM application, which initially launched in Bulgaria and Norway, will help parents manage their children's mobile phones, offering a Web-based lookup to see when calls are made and to which numbers. Block-out capabilities are also available, and an emergency calling feature is supported that uses GPS to send an emergency call to five parties that will show where the child's phone is located.

Eswara said he didn't know of any competitor offering anything similar to the iSIM that is a product physically apart from the original SIM in a phone. Many companies already offer a variety of applications that work with a customer's SIM.

IDC's Stofega and Drake also said they have heard of nothing comparable to the iSIM. An enterprise might want to evaluate the iSIM and decide whether it truly provides advantages. One potential downside is that the iSIM could be viewed as a separate component that is harder to manage than an integrated application on a phone.

"It might become something like a Wi-Fi card that you used to have to stick in the side of your laptop to get Wi-Fi," Stofega said.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld . Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .