Samsung seems to be struggling to get its Knox mobile security suite off the ground.
Earlier this year, Samsung took the wraps off Knox, which was aimed at giving corporate IT buyers assurance when they opt to purchase Samsung-branded Android devices for their employees.
However, now per a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report, the program has been a failure thus far, as Knox has been "beset by delays and programming bugs, frustrating clients including the U.S. Defense Department."
"Over the past two years, Samsung has gone to great lengths to build its security platform, called Knox, integrating Knox into every stage of phone development. As Samsung has found, however, it's not easy to build up such capabilities overnight," reports the WSJ.
Per the publication, Samsung's executives are reportedly acknowledging the issues "privately", as well "listening" to the grievances and addressing the problems.
One of the primary challenges facing Samsung is inexperience "in customer service for businesses" as the company has traditionally been focused on consumer electronics and hasn't had to worry about the needs of corporate IT departments. Moreover, Samsung has also struggled to meet important deadlines and even delivered beta versions that had bugs, per WSJ's sources.
"Samsung never really had a service business. It's pretty much a device-oriented business," said a person involved in the project. "Creating this new organization that specializes in selling software and services, that took us longer than expected."
Samsung's teething troubles in the mobile security area will be welcomed by BlackBerry, which has of late been pushing itself as the top-most cross-platform mobile device management company in the world.
