BlackBerry CEO says Google’s Android Security Enhancements just aren’t enough

Google’s forthcoming Android L update, promises to make life easier for corporate employees currently carrying more than one smartphone.

“As a user, you can have one experience, and both your personal applications and your corporate applications can live on the same device. All your personal data is isolated from your corporate stuff, and vice versa,” Pichai announced on the IO stage.

Called Android for Work, the new initiative is intended to help enterprise and corporate customers deploy devices to employees with minimum hassle.

This has led to BlackBerry CEO John Chen taking to the BlackBerry Blogs to state that while seeing Android security enhanced, it’s far from enough.

He reminds readers why BlackBerry is number one in security and more.

You might’ve seen the news: at Google’s I/O developer conference today, the company said it would do several things to boost Android’s security. Most prominently, this includes separating work and personal apps and data in coming versions of Android by leveraging Samsung’s KNOX containerization technology.

I’m delighted by this first step. The need to improve Android’s security was clear. And it validates what we at BlackBerry have been saying all along about the potential perils that businesses face in the BYOD era.

KNOX does help to shore up Android’s gaps. Like our own BlackBerry Balance, it uses containers to protect confidential work apps and data by segregating them from personal data. But KNOX hasn’t been widely adopted – fewer than 2 million Samsung phones are actually running KNOX today. Meanwhile, tens of millions of BlackBerry devices are trusted every day by Fortune 1000 firms worldwide. Our BES software dominates the enterprise mobility management (EMM) space, with more business customers than our top three competitors combined.

And while KNOX tries to build a fortress upon an insecure foundation, BlackBerry’s entire infrastructure – not just Balance, but every single component – is constructed upon a multi-decade bedrock of mobile management and security expertise.

“BlackBerry is still the gold standard,” Strategy Analytics analyst Kevin Burden told eWeek in April. “We know that to be true—on device encryption, the transfer of data … it’s all there.”

BlackBerry architects security into every single layer, from our BlackBerry 10-enabled devices (which, by the way, can securely run your Android apps) to the networks upon which your messages and data travel, to our secure messaging platform BBM Protected to the BES management software. It’s why we have won 45 security certifications, more than any other vendor, including the only coveted “Full Operational Capability” certificate to run on U.S. Department of Defense networks to a mobile vendor.

While we agree that demand for mobile security and EMM is growing by leaps and bounds, we also think that CIOs are looking to place their faith in known, proven quantities. “BlackBerry was MDM before anyone knew what MDM meant,” wrote Forrester Research analyst Tyler Shields last month. “Security was baked into the BlackBerry devices and BES system at design time and will continue to add business value above and beyond the commoditized MDM components…BlackBerry will remain a leader in the hardware security and device management arena.”

Our track record and quality doesn’t come at an exorbitant cost. Strategy Analytics declared BES10 to have the lowest Total Cost of Ownership over 5 years of all EMM packages. Nor do you have to sacrifice on flexibility. BES is fully cross-platform. In addition to BlackBerry devices, BES can manage iPhones, Android devices and, soon, Windows Phone devices.

No wonder that we serve all 5 of the world’s largest global oil and gas businesses, all of the top 10 pharmaceutical, automotive and law firms, all 7 of the G7 governments, and 16 of the G20 governments. And with migration programs such as EZ Pass, we’re attracting thousands of new customers representing 1.2 million workers – with 10% of those coming wins coming from MDM vendors.

At BlackBerry, our entire focus is on making workers more productive, and organizations more secure. While we applaud Google and Samsung for their plans, we don’t think it’s enough for security-minded enterprises. Instead, look to companies that have literally invested 3 decades into advancing the twin causes of security and productivity. In other words, don’t be dazzled by those who can talk the security talk. Instead, look to the company that has proven repeatedly it can walk the walk.

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