BlackBerry has teamed up with Samsung and IBM to develop SecuTABLET, a high-security tablet designed for the public sector and enterprises.
The tablet, based on Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5, leverages secure mobile communication solutions from BlackBerry-owned Secusmart and secure app wrapping technology from IBM.
According to BlackBerry, national and international authorities and enterprises will be able to store sensitive information on the SecuTABLET while allowing employees to use personal applications such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and YouTube without putting classified data at risk.
“Security is ingrained in every part of BlackBerry’s portfolio, which includes voice and data encryption solutions,” commented Dr. Hans-Christoph Quelle, CEO of Secusmart. “National and international government customers have entrusted their voice and data communications with the Secusmart Security Card for years. This same technology is what secures the new SecuTABLET. Working alongside IBM and Samsung, we have added the last link in the chain of the Federal Security Network.”
SecuTABLET, which should become available this summer, will cost roughly $2,400. The product is currently undergoing certification at the German Federal Office for Information Security for the “classified – for official use only” security rating.
“The SecuTABLET closes a supply gap and opens up for government and administrations an opportunity to derive greater benefit from digitization and the mobile Internet, with system integration as a fundamental success factor,” noted Stefan Hefter, senior management consultant with IBM. “We have contributed our longstanding expertise as a system integrator for mobile solutions. The technology used to make mobile apps secure by means of so-called wrapping has already proven its worth in the United States.”
While BlackBerry has struggled in the competitive smartphone space, the Canada-based company does pride itself on being the only mobile device management (MDM) vendor that has achieved the “Full Operational Capability” level of certification for operation on U.S. Department of Defense Networks.
SecuTABLET is being showcased this week at the 2015 CeBIT technology trade fair in Hannover, Germany.