Samsung and BlackBerry announced a partnership on Thursday, Nov. 13. to improve security of BlackBerry devices running on Android.
The two tech companies will join forces to work on BlackBerry Enterprise Service 12 (BES12) server which oversees enterprise mobile devices running on iOs, Windows Phone and Android, as well as BlackBerry's own mobile operating system.
Samsung will integrate BlackBerry's BES12 end-to-end encryption service into its own KNOX software, which allows users to safely run their mobile device for both personal and work use to improve on its security, providing a total firewall between personal and private data and would improve the security of Samsung smartphones as well.
"BlackBerry has developed a very close partnership with Samsung and we're committed to deepening the interaction between our engineering and product development teams for the long term," John Sims, BlackBerry's president of global enterprise services, said in a statement.
"It is a natural progression in our path to providing our customers with more alternatives to meet their evolving mobile needs. Samsung KNOX offers a number of hardware and software security features and our partnership allows us to tightly integrate these capabilities with BES12," he added.
The improvement to the BES12 software will also include a new VPN authentication service do smartphones running on different operating softwares to lessen the need to "tote around key fobs that generate random numerical codes."
"Samsung and BlackBerry share many customers across highly-regulated verticals, including government, financial services, healthcare and others, whose needs can be uniquely met with the combined Knox and BES 12 solution," Samsung said in a release.
The service will be released early next year, and will also come with support for Samsung's Galaxy tablets and smartphones.
Meanwhile, Blackberry introduced another service named WorkLife offered to BlackBerry, Android and iPhones that allows users to manage their telecommunications expenses which include text messages, voice calls and data.
