Samsung has talked about BYOD (bring your own device) before and already have the SAFE for Enterprise program which has always been touted as offering “solutions that include the necessary security and feature enhancements suitable for business use.” Coming out of Mobile World Congress however, it seems Samsung has taken the BYOD offerings a step further by adding some additional layers of security. The new program is called KNOX and this one is said to be the “comprehensive mobile solution” for work and play.
Or in simpler terms, Samsung KNOX will offer what is called a ‘container solution’ that separates work and play on your smartphone. Samsung has said that this will be easily accessible from an icon on the home screen. The KNOX icon (container) will feature applications and solutions that users need for work. Some of the apps will include email, contacts, calendar, file sharing, collaboration, a browser and more. Perhaps key for IT departments though, the KNOX container will present these in a secure environment and keep the personal and work side completely separate.
In addition to being designed to give the IT department and users what they want, Samsung also made sure this will work for the developers as well. According to details provided, Samsung KNOX will be able to allow existing Android apps to “gain enterprise integration and validated, robust security with zero change to the application source code.” Basically, Samsung appears to be presenting KNOX as an end-to-end solution that is easy for all sides to integrate.
While all this sounds interesting enough, Samsung has yet to offer some of the key details such as exactly when it will be available and what costs will be involved. What we have seen is that KNOX will be “commercially available in selected Samsung GALAXY devices” beginning in the second quarter. One would have to believe that this means some of the more popular devices such as the Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III will be involved. Then again, maybe this is something we will see more of when the Galaxy S IV is announced on March 14.
[via Samsung Tomorrow]
I think that Sansumg’s KNOX is a good start for addressing dual purpose BYOD. I will be curious what features will be offered for the enterprise side. I still think that HIPAA and SOX compliance will still be an issue with KNOX, since it will still leave the user data on the device and that can be a big security issue if the device is lost or stolen. We have this issue in healthcare, but Tigertext at least offers auto-delete of text messages, but for email I don’t think there is a app based solution. Hopefully KNOX feature set will allow remote or auto-delete of emails.