Today at the 2013 Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) (MWC) being held in Barcelona, Spain Samsung unveiled a new enterprise BYOD security initiative it calls KNOX (hmm, security and KNOX…not a far cry from Fort Knox). And as we anticipated, today key mobile device management and MAM enterprise player MobileIron revealed that it has expanded its partnership with Samsung (News - Alert) to fully support KNOX. The new platform provides a unique layer of security for Android devices, though that security capability specifically only targets Samsung's Android (News - Alert) devices, and even more specifically it will only be available on certain high end enterprise-class Galaxy devices.

Bob Tinker, MobileIron's CEO notes that, “Samsung KNOX is a major step forward in establishing Android as a core computing platform for business, and we are pleased to be part of the KNOX ecosystem. What distinguishes KNOX is Samsung’s commitment to meeting and exceeding the security needs of the most exacting enterprise and government organizations. Our customers are already very excited to trial and deploy KNOX.”

KNOX creates a distinct work persona that completely separates a user’s personal content and apps from the user's corporate data and business applications. KNOX allows users to easily and seamlessly switch between the two environments, which alleviated many potential headaches for enterprise IT departments that are struggling to deliver BYOD programs that address the security concerns of the enterprise without losing sight of the original benefits of BYOD.

KNOX implements a special version of Android that has been modified to directly manage a device's ability to keep personal data private and business data entirely under the control of the business. Clearly separating the two workspaces from each other removes the risk of the user losing personal data or the corporation losing control over its business data. MobileIron and Samsung deliver this experience through a containerized environment from Samsung and end-to-end management of enterprise apps and documents by MobileIron.

Yes, it certainly sounds like BlackBerry (News - Alert) Fusion and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 making use of BlackBerry Balance. It's the same promise and the same set of capabilities. Only now Samsung and MobileIron are able to offer an enterprise security argument that BlackBerry can't differentiate against.

Jae Shin, vice president, B2B Business Group at Samsung Electronics adds that, “User adoption of Samsung mobile devices is exploding around the world and, with the KNOX, we are establishing a new standard for mobile security in the enterprise. Our partnership with MobileIron enables organizations and governments around the world to add Samsung devices into even the most highly security-conscious environments. Samsung/KNOX and MobileIron partnership delivers the security that enterprise IT requires without compromising the experiences of the end user workforce.”