It is well over a year since we focused on the Android Enterprise Recommended programme here at Android Kenya. For a good reason. Where it was once a niche thing accommodating a bunch of pre-selected devices, it has become pretty much a standard with newer devices, from many brands and cutting across various price segments, making it to the programme.
The reason? With the blurred lines between what we do on our devices in our own free time or just about any other time and what our employers may require us to be doing at work and any other time we are touching work-related stuff increasing, especially in the wake of a crippling pandemic that has changed the way we live and work, it is a no-brainer to have one device that does it all.
This is solely why the Android Enterprise Recommended programme, launched in February 2018, exists.
However, from its launch day, a notable device maker, the largest in the Android world, actually, has been loudly missing from the list of brands whose devices are part of the programme.
Going forward, that is no more as Samsung’s latest smartphones and tablets are now part of the programme, in a partnership between Google and Samsung announced 2 days ago.
“Samsung’s participation in the programme gives Samsung’s customers added assurance that it meets – and in fact exceeds – the hardware and software requirements set out by Google for the enterprise,” a statement from the company reads.
Samsung’s Galaxy S20 and Note 20 series smartphones, as well as the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 and S7+ tablets, are the first to become part of the Android Enterprise Recommended programme.
Samsung’s ruggedized smartphone offering, the Galaxy Xcover Pro, released at the start of the year, is also part of the programme, making sure that people in the field are not left behind and have the same access to safeguards in their office enterprise network and other tools like everyone else.
Android Enterprise Recommended launched with some stringent conditions that required device makers to only forward for certification and inclusion into the programme devices that had up to date software and were guaranteed at least another year of receiving operating system upgrades and at least quarterly security updates. Samsung has since made it public that it is now guaranteeing up to 3 years of major operating system updates, a development that bodes well for its inclusion in the programme.
The company has been working with Google to strengthen its own similar programme, under its Knox suite of enterprise-related software tools under the “Galaxy Enterprise Editions” banner.
Lenovo, OnePlus, Oppo and Xiaomi have also recently joined the programme.
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