First it was devices. Then it was apps. Organizations are sorting through the mess that has been created for the enterprise as employees at all levels mix business and personal data together on the same device.
The consumer market has been the focus of smartphone vendors largely up until recently, led by Apple and its focus on consumers. But the enterprise is emerging as the next area of focus as companies large and small grapple with how to secure corporate data.
Mobile device management (MDM) has been the most common attempt to date, with MDM delivering a wrapper around which business data can be isolated and protected.
Third party vendors have led the charge, but now companies such as Apple, Samsung and LG are getting in on the act.
“Whether its operator managed services, the enterprise software companies themselves or indeed the OEMs looking to offer solutions in tandem with partners on their devices, they are all looking to offer features for content management and persona management, which is about how to handle a private and a work profile on the device,” Andrew Brown told Infoworld recently, executive director for enterprise research firm Strategy Analytics (News - Alert). “That is becoming increasingly important.”
That in mind, LG recently announced its LG Electronics' Gate, which separates the professional and private lives of smartphone users through virtualization.
With LG Gate, users can keep personal and business information completely separate by running two operating systems on a single smartphone. The solution comes with enterprise-friendly features such as data encryption, Microsoft (News - Alert) ActiveSync and MDM.
LG has collaborated with large VPN and MDM vendors on the offering, according to the company, although it has not identified exactly which players it has partnered with.
LG Gate will first be available in the U.S. market with the company’s G2 (News - Alert) smartphone. That’s because the U.S. has been faster than other countries such as those in Europe when it comes to BYOD adoption.
“The BYOD trend is a lot stronger in the U.S.,” noted Francisco Jeronimo, research director for European mobile devices at IDC, also in the Infoworld article. “When we asked companies in the U.K. they were more keen on providing the handsets themselves because of the level of control that gives."
Samsung Electronics also recently joined forces with Orange (News - Alert) Business Services to sell tablets protected by Samsung's Knox platform in Europe, and Apple made waves when iOS 7 included basic MDM functionality.
Vendors such as Huawei and ZTE (News - Alert) also are also expected to jump into the enterprise smartphone market soon, according to Jeronimo.
With Samsung and third-party vendors leading the charge, it will be tough for companies such as LG to carve out a sizable position in the enterprise smartphone market, according to analysts. But it still is possible; the market is still relatively wide open.
"It is becoming increasingly tough, particularly for companies like LG, who is a big player but essentially a follower,” said Brown. “It is not going to be able to call the shots with Samsung in such a dominant position globally.”
Edited by Rachel Ramsey