Friday, September 27, 2013

Filling the void of Blackberry

By now, I think more people are aware of what's going on with RIM/Blackberry.  For most people, it was a matter of who they would be bought out by and when.

When RIM rolled out the Blackberry many years back, its focus was on the business user.  This user needed something relayable and SECURE.  But when the iPhone hit (and later Android), even tho these devices were less secure than Blackberry, they had features that Blackberry lacked and was hard to catch up: the array of applications.

Now, some tried to bring iPhones and Androids up to the level of Blackberry, to be able to compete for the business user.  For a period of time, Motorola Mobility had an array of products that made their phones more acceptable to the business user.  They had bought out 3LM (mentioned in a prior posting) to make Android more secure.  Their "webtop" on their high end phones was another addition aimed at the business user.  This was a stripped down Linux OS with added features that would turn the phone into a "laptop" if connected to an HDMI device and keyboard (say thru one of their docking stations) or plugged into one of their "lapdocks" which gave a netbook-sized screen and keyboard.  Sadly, when Google bought Motorola Mobility, all that would be dropped as Google wanted the new division to instead focus on the larger consumer market.

Thus, it was left to others to step into the field.  Samsung has already done so to a degree with their Knox security add-on to Android (again, see my prior posting).  Now they seem to have extended this with their SAFE (Samsung for Enterprise) effort.  As higher security for such devices is important, this bearing watching.

See article HERE.