Enterprises made iPhone the preferred enterprise mobile platform over the past few years mainly because Apple introduced enterprise features in iOS 4.
Now Samsung wants to make their Android phones and tablets into fully secure and enterprise-grade devices. The Samsung SAFE program is based on a series of APIs and other OS extensions to Android that significantly improve security and offer IT administrators the ability to implement over 300 security policies. Let's call them "BlackBerry replacements."
"SAmsung For Enterprise" (SAFE) has been around for more than a year, but the launch of the SAFE-certified Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note 2 were the first devices to launch with SAFE-branding.
The SAFE program rests on four pillars:
- Corporate Email /Calendar / Contacts
- On-Device Encryption (ODE)
- Virtual Private Network (VPN)
- Mobile Device Management (MDM)
Samsung will offer IM, VoIP, video conferencing and chat, and document and media sharing apps that work across an enterprise’s wireline and wireless networks.
This unified communications software suite was developed by networking vendor Genband. Their UC platform, called Experius, is already in enterprise networks the world: 20 million licenses. Genband offers the platform as a cloud software-as-a-service or it sells the software and infrastructure directly to enterprises, system integrators and carriers.
The SAFE pillars help SAFE devices appeal to IT because they provide similar policies that IT had access to when BlackBerry ruled the enterprise. Unlike BlackBerries, these popular Samsung Android devices make a lot of BYOD lists. So IT managers and their users are both happy.
Yes,Apple's iOS is still considered a safer platform than Android by many IT organizations-- mainly because Apple makes the hardware and OS and doesn't let carriers (or anyone) modify or muck around with either. Android lets manufacturers and carriers customize which means a lot of uncertainty about variations and secure, compatible updates.
If devices are built and certified to meet enterprise requirements in the SAFE program, Apple could find its more rigid Volume Purchase Program (the ability to bulk purchase apps and distribute them to employee devices) to be an Achilles heel against an aggressive Samsung.
Go Samsung SAFE
