Companies poking fun at their competitors is commonplace. Some companies do it subtly, while others bring out the guns and lavishly spend marketing dollars on negative ad campaigns. And others just straight up point their finger at their enemy. John Sims, the President of Global Enterprise Services at BlackBerry, just published an article on the company’s official blog calling Samsung’s Knox security solution into question. He cites how researchers in Israel have figured out how to bypass Knox, and that Samsung’s response to the situation was to blame Android.
Why exactly is BlackBerry doing this? To convince governments and corporations not to replace people’s BlackBerry phones with Galaxy phones from Samsung. Obviously. But there’s more to the story. John recognizes that some people might want to use a device for work that they already own. This is known as the BYOD or “bring your own device” movement. For those people, BlackBerry is also working on a solution to lock down iPhones, Androids, and everything else in between.
How important are these large contracts? In the grand scheme of things, not much. When people become government employees or work for a Fortune 100 company, they get assigned a phone. Those people, looking to balance work and life, typically also carry a second phone. While not the most practical solution, it’s certainly the easiest. So I say let those ancient BlackBerry 7 devices be sold, but don’t complain that people have a Galaxy Note in their other pocket.
