Good Technology, a provider of mobile device security and management solutions for enterprises, today launched a secure browser for Android devices designed to provide secure access to enterprise resources via mobile devices.
Dubbed Good Mobile Access (GMA) for Android, the Web browser is a feature of the company’s flagship Good for Enterprise offering, and enables secure mobile access to “behind-the-firewall applications”, company databases, resources and collaboration tools such as SharePoint data without needing a VPN connection.
With GMA for Android, the company says that customers can improve employee productivity by providing seamless access to corporate Intranet resources through a secure mobile browser, while at the same time helping to prevent data loss.
“Consumer use of Android devices has really taken off, and we are seeing increased enterprise adoption, especially among our customers who support formal BYOD programs,” said John Herrema, senior vice president of corporate strategy at Good Technology. “Supporting BYOD means supporting Android devices, and we want to make sure our customers can confidently embrace this trend, increase employee productivity, and not have to compromise on security or compliance.”
As an example, with the GMA solution, an employee using an Android phone or tablet can receive an email containing a link to the corporate Intranet, and when they click on the URL, the GMA browser is launched to enable secure viewing or downloading of information.
The company says that by using an application-specific secure transport method, malicious apps are blocked from accessing the broader corporate environment.
Additionally, GMA encrypts browser cache, cookies, bookmarks, and history within Good’s secure, enterprise container and allows IT to control whether content and documents can be copied to, or opened in other applications.
The Android version of the secure browser follows a version developed for devices running Apple’s iOS that was released in March 2011. According to Good Technology’s Q4 2011 Device Activation Report, Good’s enterprise end users seem to have a taste for Apple products, especially in the tablet category where the iPad and iPad 2 accounted for 94 percent of total tablet activations. iOS devices (iPhones and iPads) accounted for over 70 percent of all activations in Q4 2011, the company said.
Good Mobile Access for Android is available now to Good for Enterprise customers using version 1.9.0 or higher.
