By Diana Zelikman, Fueled
Recently, we at Fueled have noted that Windows 7 and 8 tablets are dominating the enterprise market. Companies like Samsung and Apple generally dominate tablet sales in the consumer market, but manufacturers like Dell and HP continue to have a stronghold on the enterprise division.
This may soon change though as more companies, like Samsung, look to try their hand in the enterprise market. Can they break into this area with any success? That remains to be seen.
Samsung unveiled its new line of enterprise tablets, the Galaxy PRO line, at the CES 2014 in January. In the new line there are two new devices: the 12.2 inch Galaxy NotePro and Galaxy TabPro tablet which is available in 12.2, 10.1, and 8.4 inch models. The devices are solely targeted at the enterprise user and come with features such as multi-window, allowing end users to split their screen into four different windows, pre-installed Cisco’s WebEx Meetings platform, LinkedIn, Dropbox, and a virtual keyboard. Each device is also available with Wi-Fi, 3G or LTE, making them a great option for the mobile business traveller.
The two tablets run on Google Android 4.4 but Samsung has taken it a step further and personalized the look and feel specifically for business users, creating what they call a ‘Magazine UX’. The Magazine UX gives the end user a more graphical, widget-heavy interface, which Samsung says makes accessing applications more seamless and “immediate.”
Along with these new enterprise tablets, Samsung has also created its own MDM, mobile device management, and security platform called KNOX. KNOX is specifically designed for BYOD, bring your own device, in the workplace and is compatible with any Android device.
While these features are useful to enterprise users, they may not be enough. Samsung is regurgitating important features that their competitors implemented long ago. Widgets and out-of-the-box apps are nothing new and MDM normally comes as part of a more comprehensive EMM, enterprise mobility management, suite rather than alone. If Samsung truly wants to capture a share of the market their enterprise products need to offer a must-have feature that their competitors don’t.
There are features that Dell and HP don’t have, like built-in remote PC functionality, which the new Samsung tablets do offer. It allows end users the ability to access and control their office PCs from their tablets, making it much easier to edit and save files remotely while maintaining secure data protection. However, features like this will probably soon become mainstream so they don’t offer any sort of edge.
Experts are not leaning in Samsung’s favour either, with the Galaxy NotePro projected to only sell about a million units this year. Those are disappointing numbers in comparison to the 40 million Galaxy S4 phones Samsung has sold. At $849 and $649, respectively, the tablets cost a pretty penny and could reap a huge profit if they sold 40 million units combined like the S4.
That doesn’t look like it’s going to be the case though. Ultimately, Samsung may end up losing money on these devices and proving their inability to compete in the enterprise space.