On the same week the BlackBerry announced it was being shopped for $4.7 billion, Samsung is talking about how it’s going to grab that company’s old user base of business executives and industry buyers.
Samsung is releasing a cache of application programming interfaces (APIs) and working with enterprise software companies, so they can tweak their programs to use some of the unique features on Samsung devices.
The move spells further fragmentation of the Android platform, and also looks like part of a broader attempt by Samsung to differentiate itself from other device makers, by optimizing software to work best on its own gadgets.
The Samsung Solutions Exchange says it aims to, for instance, make it possible for a software enterprise makers to create a program for doctors to utilize Air Gesture on a Galaxy Tab tablet — a feature that lets you wave your hand in front of the device rather than touch the screen to scroll. (Apparently useful for the gloved.)
Through the Exchange, Samsung is providing the software development kit for the device, and also the API that allows a enterprise software vendor to write to Air Gesture.
A company like Salesforce might write to that API differently to say, Citrix or Microsoft MSFT +0.15%Sharepoint, hence Samsung is offering to collaborate on that process through the Exchange. The API release will let software vendors optimize their code for other features like the Samsung S-Pen, Air View and S-Voice.
Neither Salesforce nor Microsoft Sharepoint are members of the Exchange, though Samsung touts 41 members so far including MobileIron and Citrix.
The project is overseen by Tim Wagner, vice president of Samsung’s enterprise business unit in the U.S., who happens to have spent five years at BlackBerry before joining Samsung in 2010.
“What attracted me to Samsung was the pace at which they released technology and their undying willingness to satisfy any customer requirement,” he says. “We have the support to tackle the enterprise marketplace.”
Till now, Samsung’s main efforts in getting into mobile enterprise market once dominated by BlackBerry, was in selling its security offerings SAFE and KNOX. These were software solutions aimed at tackling the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) to work challenge, so that corporate applications and networks could securely co-exist on a person’s smartphone along with their personal apps and data.
The Samsung Solutions Exchange is the company’s next step towards attracting more enterprise customers, ie. IT departments at companies whose employees use Samsung devices. “We have to embrace both the end user IT department and have the necessary relationship with [enterprise software vendors],” says Wagner.
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