With Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work becoming more popular by the day, it is not surprising to see Samsung following in RIM’s footsteps by developing SAFE (Samsung for Enterprise) on the Galaxy S 3, to enable encryption and Virtual Private Network and thus make their devices attractive to Enterprise.
They are taking the app further with the launching of the Knox service that will now enable corporations to setup and manage a container for corporate data and apps. This system was developed by the National Security Agency (NSA), to signify that the system is as strong as Fort Knox.
So now the Android Smartphone will have two partitions, one for personal data and the other for business. They have developed this app in collaboration with Centrify. The administration control for the Knox service will be provided through the Active Directory infrastructure already present in the device.
With this launch, Samsung has made their devices very Enterprise friendly and safe, and they will take Research in Motion head on in the Enterprise sector, especially the Blackberry Z 10 and Q 10 phones.
According to Centrify spokespersons, this feature will provide a clean separation between work and play, and enable both enterprise control and employee satisfaction.
Mobile devices with Knox incorporated in them will store browser, contacts collaboration, business intelligence apps and emails in a secure partition.
This new tool will also provide protection to users from malware and other online threats by encrypting files at the system level with the help of SE Android.
The partition containing the corporate info will be administered by the IT department of the firm, with the rest of the phone being at the user’s disposal to be used any way they want.
This will address the concerns of leaking of sensitive business info or trade secrets with the BYOD system. Also, when the worker leaves the organisation, the IT department can wipe clean the Corporate partition, leaving all the user’s personal info, documents, photos and the like, untouched.
The handset as well as the partition can be administered by Centrify for Mobile 2013 (the latest version) which enables organisations to mange mobile devices via their Active Directory infrastructure. Centrify functions as a cloud service, linking to the customer’s Active Directory through a Centrify Cloud Proxy Server on the premises.
According to Samsung, Knox will also simplify matters for developers; they will no longer have to incorporate enterprise centric features into their apps like VPN compliant with FIPS, Enterprise Single Sign On, Active Directory, on device encrypting, and multi factor authentication based on Smart Cards; the software is compatible with existing directory services, VPNs and MDMs.
It is believed that Knox will be launched on certain Galaxy devices shortly; there is no official word as to which handsets would receive this feature. However I would think it is safe to assume that it will be seen only on the higher end devices like the S 3, Note 2.0 and so on.
Author bio: Patrick Hudson likes writing articles related to Technology News, Gadget Reviews and How To. He also does guest posting for buycharter.com – a site that offers savings and current information on charter cable.
