March 20,2013-Samsung’s consumer products may today be ubiquitous but it is still unknown as an enterprise IT vendor. That is about to change. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, late in February, the Korean technology giant unveiled Knox, a comprehensive solution that addresses the “mobile security needs of enterprise IT”. A week later, it showcased Knox at the Samsung Forum in Hyderabad.
Simply put, Knox, which can be deployed on the Samsung Galaxy SIII and Galaxy Note II smartphones, will separate personal and enterprise data into separate containers, much like Balance, a feature in the new BlackBerry 10 operating system (OS). Currently, BlackBerry, with roughly 25 million enterprise users, is the market leader in the mobile enterprise IT segment. But Apple has been making inroads in this space with over 90 per cent of Fortune 500 companies now using its devices.
Knox positions Samsung to exploit any softening in demand among enterprises and ‘prosumers’ (professional consumers) for BlackBerry devices, which have long been the benchmark for enterprise smart devices, Tony Cripps, a devices and platforms analyst at Ovum, a tech and business research firm, wrote in research note. “Knox could be an important differentiator over most of Samsung’s Android device rivals,” he wrote.
Knox, however, will face challenges given that it will run on the Android OS, which is considered to have major security flaws. Being an open-source software, any developer is free to create apps for the platform and this has left it vulnerable to malicious software and security chinks.
“Knox will perhaps help with enterprise acceptance of Android, but it is an uphill battle as IT managers don’t like the fact that Android is a more open system with many variants,” said Tom Astle, Managing Director of Research at Byron Capital Markets, in an email interview. This, he says, makes it difficult to completely control the security and overall policy environment. But security is not the only issue with Android. The OS has also fragmented into many versions, making it difficult for IT departments to manage. This too leads to inconsistency in end-user experiences.
In an effort to fortify Knox, Samsung has partnered with enterprise device management leader AirWatch and User Identity Service giant Centrify Corporation. AirWatch, which manages mobile devices for over 5,300 companies globally and has an office in Bangalore, has been working with Samsung for the past six months. The integration with Centrify will let Knox users access multiple services with a single login. “Samsung provides AirWatch customers with an Android device solution that meets strict security standards and offers end-user flexibility to separate work and personal information.
AirWatch provides Samsung access to its customer base, which includes the largest and most secure conscious organisations in the world,” says Scott Kelley, Android Product Manager at AirWatch. If the likes of Knox start making inroads into Android devices, it could be another big push for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives, where companies allow their employees to bring their own laptops, smartphones, and tablets, to work with full connectivity to the enterprise (company-wide) network. None of the large Android handset makers, other than Samsung, have a solution for enterprise users. Moving early, however, does not necessarily guarantee continuous domination. Samsung knows that, having toppled Nokia and Apple from other perches.
INDIA TODAY
