Newsletter
You may have noticed that, oddly enough, Microsoft has been pretty prevalent in Android related news lately. But there is actually some good reasoning behind this, Microsoft has been very focused on mobile lately, especially Android. An example of this new Microsoft focus is the company recently striking deals with many Android tablet manufacturers to include a suite of Microsoft apps out of the box. But there is something much more interesting that Microsoft has been doing with the biggest Android manufacturer in the world, Samsung. That is including an even bigger suite of apps and free OneDrive storage on Samsung’s two newest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge.
Clearly, due to Microsofts latest deal with Samsung the two companies are friendly with each other to some extent. It seems though that this friendliness may run a bit deeper than most people originally thought. It turns out that Microsoft and Samsung may be partnering to take on Apple and IBM in the mobile enterprise industry. According to stats from Good Technology, enterprise smartphone’s and tablet’s activated last year consisted of 72% and 81% iOS devices respectively. Whereas only 26% of devices activated in the enterprise industry consisted of Android smartphones and 1% of Windows phones. Samsung and Microsoft desire to change this by partnering and attacking the enterprise industry together.
This leads to the question of how Microsoft and Samsung would go about joining forces in the enterprise industry. A recent patent filed by Samsung may give us a peak into that answer. Said patent seems to show a hybrid of a phablet and laptop, with the phablet running Android and the laptop running Windows. The phablet would be able to dock to the laptop right above where the keyboard is located. Samsung and Microsoft may feel that this type of hybrid device would prove as an attractive offering for consumers operating in the enterprise industry.
Of course, take all of this news with a grain of salt as it is purely speculation with a little fuel from a patent. But, technology companies such as Microsoft and Samsung file patents all the time that never actually see the light of day. Even if Samsung and Microsoft did join forces in the mobile enterprise industry, it would be a very long and difficult road for them to gain the traction that Apple and IBM have.
