Motorola Takes Android to Work, and Beyond: MWC 2011 Coverage
Motorola had a lot to announce in this year’s Mobile World Congress event, focusing on security as well as enterprise mobile. The first piece of news is the acquisition of Android enterprise security start-up 3LM. Motorola is expected to officially announce the acquistion later today. Basically, the purpose of this move is to help Motorola sell more Android devices to the business sector, making them more secure overall.
“The company, which is also just on the verge of launching its product, was started by two former Google employees from the Android team. CEO Tom Moss said he and Gaurav Mathur saw a huge opportunity to offer companies the flexibility of Android with the kind of security features companies get with BlackBerry and Windows Mobile 6.5.”
Motorola is pushing enterprise, aka workplace mobile, beyond just the security front. That includes the Pro, a new business handset the phonemaker debuted today at the Mobile World Congress. The device features a 1 GHz processor and 2GB of memory, but the real attraction is Pro’s advanced password support, device/SD encryption, remote sweeping and VPN integration. Dubbed a “QWERTY-toting BlackBerry killer” by ZDNet, the Android 2.2-running business-centric Pro is not the last rabbit Motorola pulled out of the hat today.
Tablets are expected to be a far-reaching market, and Motorola’s extending its lineup overseas. The upcoming Motorola Xoom Honeycomb tablet will arrive in Europe sometime in Q2 this year. The 3G/WiFi-enabled and WiFi-only versions will both hit the mainland.
These announcements mean good news for just about every market Motorola has already or plans to tap, and may even spearhead a few emerging trends for Android in the business sector. Of course, this is also good news for Google, who seems to hit the jackpot whenever it comes to its mobile platform’s accelerating growth.
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