Genband and Samsung Team Up for Enterprise-Grade Tablets

Genband and Samsung Mobile announce their partnership deal to replace enterprise desk phones with secure tablets. The two companies say that they plan to provide a single mobile device that workers can use for data, video, and voice collaborations.

The Genband-Samsung Mobile integrated mobile solution would be made available to enterprises and SMBs through Genband's channel partners and service providers. The UC-ready tablet offering would be showcased by networking vendor Genband at the Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona.

Genband's cloud-ready unified communications (UC) software, Smart Office Unified Communications, would be integrated into Samsung's SAFE (Samsung for Enterprise) tablets.

Samsung's SAFE program was launched in 2011, and since then the company has slowly equipped its popular consumer-grade smartphones and tablets with enterprise-grade security capabilities and made attempts to sweep away Android fragmentation issues troubling CIOs. Gigaom's Kevin Fitchard commented on Samsung's partnership with Genband as proof that "Samsung wants to do more than just retrofit its phones and tablets for business users. It wants [to] offer services specifically tailored to corporate customers."

Experius, Genband's UC platform, has been used by many enterprise networks across the world. Charlie Vogt, CEO of Genband, touts that the company has 20 million licenses issued to business customers. Experius is offered either as a cloud software-as-a-service or directly to corporate and carrier customers and system integrators. In an interview with Gigaom, Vogt said that it would take years for an enterprise to embark on "something that consumers are enjoying right now." And that could be remedied and hastened by Samsung pre-certifying Genband's unified communications suite into its SAFE program.

The ensuing UC-enabled device would supply the computing power of a wireless tablet while providing real-time connectivity to employees. Moreover, it is a mobile solution that is said to be easy for an IT team to support.

"Our vision is consistent with the vision of many CIOs - a mobile tablet as the primary voice and multimedia communications device bundled with a carrier grade, cloud-based UC service," said Sam Waicberg, marketing executive at Genband, in a prepared statement.

Commenting on the teaming up of the two companies, industry analyst Jeff Kagan remarked: "This sounds like what Apple is doing with their cloud linking the different devices. However this is focused on companies and the business user, not consumers. Ideas that have transformed the consumer marketplace are now going to transform the business environment in the same way." (KOM) Link. Link. Link. Link.