Google and Samsung are collaborating in a new venture that Android L will have Samsung Knox in tow, says a recent announcement in Google’s I/O conference.
Android L is the latest operating system of Google, while Knox is Samsung’s platform for mobile device management and enterprise security. Currently, Knox platform is solely distributed to Samsung products.
Samsung Knox’s senior vice president Injong Rhee confirms the latest partnership in a previous statement.
“We are delighted with the opportunity to work with Google to help build Android’s enterprise eco-system and establish Android device as the leading choice for businesses. This represents an amazing transformation in workforce mobility,” says Rhee.
Knox will serve as additional security to Android L, a move also seen to help Android pursue its possibilities for expansion into the enterprise, government and military sectors—which is largely dominated by BlackBerry.
BlackBerry’s CEO John Chen, however, was not bothered by the latest collaboration between Samsung and Google.
“Knox does help to shore up Android’s gaps. Like our own BlackBerry Balance, it uses containers to protect confidential work apps and data by segregating them from personal data,” says Chen in a blog post.
Yet Chen believes Knox’s system is still not at par with what his company has been providing all these years to its clients, obviously shown by the adoption rate worldwide.
“But Knox hasn’t been widely adopted – fewer than 2 million Samsung phones are actually running Knox today. Meanwhile, tens of millions of BlackBerry devices are trusted every day by Fortune 1000 firms worldwide," Chen adds.
For a long time, Blackberry is the preferred device and platform by agencies and enterprises giving much value on security, such as its BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Balance. The company, however, has seemingly lost its glitter with its bleeding shares in the market.
According to Samsung, Knox is at present the sole Android supplier of “defense-grade and government-certified mobile security” that complies with the initiatives and standards of the US government and Department of Defense (DoD) in terms of mobile device security. It received an STIG approval for use in DoD networks from the US Defense Information Systems Agency.
Meanwhile, Google and Apple lately have been very aggressive when it comes to beefing up its security tools. Research reveals some devices of these companies were certified to securely run on military networks, a sector which BlackBerry once dominated.
The DoD was even reported sometime last year to plan the purchase of Samsung Galaxy and Apple iOS devices for officials at the Pentagon. Regardless, the agency was said to have not dropped BlackBerry in its line-up.
Still, Chen believes BlackBerry is many steps ahead Samsung Knox when it comes to security and has this to say to the recent tie-up.
