Samsung Launches KNOX 2.0

by Brett Howse on 5/7/2014 6:50 PM EST
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  • DanNeely - Wednesday, May 7, 2014 - link

    The real question is if the Feds will decide this is good enough to finish checking all the boxes on Samsung's IA scorecard, that currently only Blackberry has filled in, and grant them access to the more paranoid parts of the US Govt.
  • dsumanik - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    Its pretty crazy how badly blackberry blew it. Literally has to be one of the biggest all time corporate fails in history... market domination to nothing in 5 years....with virtually no attempts made to stifle the losses lol... they could have bought webOS to get something out before bb10, switched to android, switched windows phone...so many options, so much fail. Its like everyone in the world knew it was happening except them LOL.
  • retrospooty - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    "they could have bought webOS to get something out before bb10" - It wouldnt have mattered. QNX was already good, but it took them 3 years from partnering up with it (and later buying it) to release a phone. True, they didnt act soon enough, obviously, but they are just too slow, even when they do act they cant produce. 3 years from an already good OS to a released phone that was 1 year behind what everyone else already had = fail.
  • meltbox360 - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    If they had adopted android it wouldn't have got them anywhere. They would lose ALL credibility in terms of security. as a side note only Samsung is making money on android, it's not like switching to android would have saved them. As for QNX being ready and them taking a long time. QNX is not BlackBerry 10 just like Linux is not Android. BlackBerry 10 brought along an entirely new, rebuilt, secure android app player with it. That alone takes months to get out the door. They also brought out cascades, a new browser that they worked on and is ridiculously quick, smooth, and has flash player support. Then there's the keyboard which they partnered for and the entire UI paradigm which they had to come up with. Arguably parts of the OS are similar to things that have existed but it's damn near impossible to make a COMPLETELY unique os. They did a pretty good job. BlackBerry 10 is just a different beast. It's way more secure than anything out there and quickly gaining on features as well as apps through the android app player and third party devs. Great stuff except in some markets, and especially the US, people have this instinct to bash them, say their going out of business, and refuse to five them an honest look. Then they go and buy up all the Samsung phones which IMO I don't understand. So many nicer phones out there. The power of advertising.
  • sonicmerlin - Friday, May 9, 2014 - link

    The browser isn't as smooth as iOS Safari or WP's Internet explorer. It's not laggy or stuttery like android's browsers, but it's not perfectly, oil slick smooth either.
  • Penti - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link

    Back in early 2011 they had BlackBerry PlayBook OS. It was warrented to spend another (almost) two years to get the phone right. They didn't have the tools, SDK/PDK, Android runtime and other stuff ready, but neither did WebOS at the time. They did manage to release with features that Windows Phone still hasn't got (8.1 is just in preview as of yet). HP never managed to truly get the Pre3 out. Then gave up. At least Blackberry did develop something. They would be worse of with Windows Phone. There was just no platform the first years and to many restrictions. BB10 has delivered on Qt toolkit and Android runtime. Nokia was forced to cancel all their products on Qt thanks to the agreement with Microsoft. WebOS used it somewhat but nowhere to the extent BB10 does. Plus they got the enterprise features ready, you know the stuff that Windows Phone 8.1 is just getting now, but without the ability to separate apps/work spaces the same way BB does. Research In Motion as it was named never dominated the market, their best year is about 50 million sold, Symbian was always bigger and Android, iPhone had the growth that could continue while Symbian (together with MeeGo) was canceled, WebOS was canceled back in 2011. Blackberry couldn't hold that kind of volumes with OS 6/7 or any other unfinished platforms.
  • davidedney123 - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    Call me a cynic but considering the quality of the rest of the software Samsung produce I have very, very low expectations for this product. I'd be willing to bet a very large sum of money that it is absolutely full of holes.
  • retrospooty - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    Knox is pretty robust if "locked down" and security is your goal. I wouldnt buy anything with knowxon it for those reasons, but for a corporation, it works.
  • meltbox360 - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    Well except that unless they went through the android player and all those other bits of android there are still weak points. I'm curious as to how well it is done. I have my doubts but I could very well be wrong.
  • JeffFlanagan - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    What have you had problems with? I'm pretty impressed with Samsung's implementation of multiple-window support in Android.
  • ddriver - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    Rooting and removing KNOX was the first thing I did on my Note 3. To hell with warranty, installing a custom kernel and rom, removing the Samsung bloatware and sandboxing/firewalling the essentials and enabling various extra hardware and software options makes for an amazing device. Performance is tangibly better, even the pen latency was reduced to almost non-existential. Free from security holes, free from corporate personal data exploitation, free from ads - that's what people want, not new versions of the old garbage.
  • antef - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    Why is any of this necessary? Doesn't iPhone succeed in the enterprise without all this MDM crap? Most companies I think let you add an Exchange account to your iPhone directly without any secure "container"/"workspace", etc. Simply requiring a PIN on the lock screen and the fact that the iPhone is already pretty secure and encrypted seems to be good enough. Why is the exact same not true for Android. This is one of the problems it has as a platform. People take advantage of its openness and flexibility to add unnecessary bloat and invasiveness, not unlike Windows.
  • Torrijos - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    Actually Apple does allow IT departments to manage iOS devices with MDM solutions.
  • Penti - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link

    iPhone pioneered this field plus have excellent support for Exchange built in, with S/MIME encryption/certifications with remote wipe from Exchange, with support for MDM. With stuff like device encryption. With earlier support for the most important features than any other platform. This just extends on those kind of features, plus is built in so you don't need to buy in a solution to install on the phones to do this kind of management.
  • Penti - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link

    Also these are the kind of features Microsoft first delivers with Windows Phone 8.1 in the basic forms without all the container/workspace stuff. They haven't been able to do Exchange-support decently while companies like Apple have.
  • DanNeely - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    Neither iOS or stock Android can be locked down, monitored, and controlled as tightly as BB can be. Until that changes parts of the govt are going to continue buying BB phones even though the only people in the agencies who want to are the IA compliance team. Knox is Samsung's attempt to break the status quo, capture a large number of federal (mostly DoD) contracts, and finally put BlackBerry out of our misery.
  • JohnJWhitfield - Thursday, May 8, 2014 - link

    Simply requiring a PIN on the lock screen and the fact that the iPhone is already pretty secure and encrypted seems to be good enough. Why is the exact same not true for Android. This is one of the problems it has as a platform. People take advantage of its openness and flexibility to add unnecessary bloat and invasiveness, not unlike Windows. http://num.to/6142-9294-2042

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