Federal Manager's Daily Report

Signaling a hardware purchase in the works, the FBI has issued a solicitation for 26,500 Samsung Knox, enterprise edition operating system licenses.

Samsung Knox runs on top of Google’s Android operating system and acts as a more secure container for business-hosted apps. The partition enables users to switch between personal use and business use of the device. It’s also Samsung’s answer to security concerns with Android, and is a key part of its competition with Blackberry for government contracts.

For now it would seem the FBI is moving away from Blackberry to Samsung. With Knox the device can be secured to require a password as well as a fingerprint scan.

Samsung Knox is also making inroads for DoD components. The Defense Information Services Agency recently issued version 2.0of itsAndroid/Samsung Knox capability under the DoD Mobility Unclassified Capability to mission partners for connecting those devices to DoD networks:

http://www.disa.mil/News/PressResources/2014/Mobility-Adroid-Samsung

Blackberry meanwhile remains a favored solution with a good reputation for security, which has long been a focus for RIM.