Samsung Enterprise Mobility Push Receives Boost From NSA And US Army

Steve McCaskill,

Samsung’s enterprise plans are reportedly given the seal of approval from the US military and security agencies

Samsung‘s push into the enterprise mobility market has received a boost after it reportedly secured an order for 7,000 devices from the US Army and is apparently close to another order for several thousand devices from the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The Wall Street Journal says the army order is for the company’s Nett Warrior system, which provides soldiers with a chest-mounted Samsung Galaxy Note II smartphone on the battlefield. The army has already placed a previous order for the system, but its latest contract is for more devices.

The NSA order is apparently part of an agency-wide update called the Fishbowl Project. Both the army and the NSA will equip the handsets with their own security software and although they are small orders, they will be used by Samsung as proof that its products can be used in secure and heavily regulated environments.

Samsung enterprise ambitions

Samsung Galaxy Round 1The Korean manufacturer told TechWeekEurope last November that it plans a major push into the enterprise market during 2014 as it seeks to maintain high growth in developed countries, where the consumer space is saturating.

This has been the realm of BlackBerry which was once considered the industry standard by public and private sector customers, but its share of the market has eroded significantly in recent years as its smartphones have become increasingly undesirable and its rivals have caught up in terms of management and security features.

Samsung’s push represents a major threat to the struggling Canadian manufacturer, which is pinning its hopes of a revival on its reputation for providing secure devices and services. BlackBerry claims it has 80,000 enterprise customers around the world, but 50,000 use its older management system and many of the 30,000 using BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES 10) are only testing it out.

Others are also seeking to prey on BlackBerry’s vulnerability. Good Technology, Dell and VMware are all looking at Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) and the subject is expected to be one of the major themes of Mobile World Congress (MWC), which opens in Barcelona next week.

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