Samsung Plans To Flex Its Business Muscle

Samsung has a wide-ranging offensive planned for spring, with a variety of new devices and software seemingly designed to not only challenge Apple in the consumer market, but also tech titans such as Google and Lenovo.

At a March 16 event in New York City, Samsung executives suggested that these devices – including, but not limited to, televisions, laptops, and smartphones – would combine into a comprehensive ecosystem. If that strategy succeeds with businesses and consumers, it would serve to bring Samsung more onto the level of an Apple or Microsoft – albeit, one whose mobile devices run Google Android while its PCs use Windows.

Galaxy Is Expanding

Part of the strategy involves expanding its Galaxy ecosystem, which started with the Samsung Galaxy S line of Android smartphones before expanding later in 2010 to the seven-inch Galaxy Tab tablet. Samsung recently released a “teaser” for an upcoming event in Orlando, Florida, which pundits have widely interpreted as the unveiling of possibly-larger Tabs; in the meantime, however, the company seems intent on pushing the seven-inch version as the vanguard of its tablet intentions.

Samsung is also producing two Galaxy Players, portable media devices that look and operate like an Android-based iPod Touch. Considering how sales of Apple’s traditional iPod have fallen over the past several quarters, a phenomenon that company attributes to cannibalisation by the iPhone, Samsung’s decision to plunge into the portable media-player market aside from the Galaxy S is an interesting one. Perhaps they feel that Apple’s traditional stranglehold on that market segment needs a challenger.

Samsung used the New York City event to heavily promote its emphasis on 3D for consumer televisions, but the company apparently intends to export that technology to its more enterprise-centric initiatives. (The sheer amount of televisions on display, loaded with the app-heavy “Smart Hub”, spoke to the company’s desire to challenge Google TV and other “Web television” initiatives currently in the works.) Whether businesspeople will go for their presentations popping from the screen, “Avatar”-style, remains to be seen.

Laptops For Business Users

Whether or not 3D takes off as a business tool, Samsung unveiled three new laptop lines for both enterprise and SMB workers: the Series 2, Series 4, and Series 6 notebooks. All three lines feature Windows 7 Professional, Fast Start technology, which rapidly brings the devices into a work-ready mode from sleep, along with Intel Core processors and security measures such as a fingerprint sensor. Samsung also focused on anti-spill and ultra-rugged builds: all the better, apparently, to survive the slings and arrows of office life.

On the consumer side, Samsung’s Series 9 notebooks offer light weight (2.89 lbs) and thinness, paired with Windows 7 Professional and seven-hour battery life.

Whether all of Samsung’s fronts succeed, one thing seems perfectly clear: the company wants a much bigger piece of other tech companies’ pie.