The push to let employees bring their own devices to work has been underway for some time now — in fact, it’s a big part of what ultimately doomed enterprise-focused companies like BlackBerry’s hardware businesses. Samsung’s been walking the line for a while as well, rolling out enterprise features like Knox security for its consumer handsets, along with accessories like DeX, designed to convert the phones into makeshift desktop computers.
The company’s going all in this week with the Note 8 Enterprise Edition. The phone’s pretty much what it sounds like: a standard, unlocked version of the company’s latest phablet, decked out with a bunch of business-focused software feature designed to add security to sensitive information and make it easier for IT to work with.
Here’s Samsung VP Eric McCarty on walking the line between business and personal devices, “Modern enterprises are dealing with a conflict when it comes to their mobile strategies—a push and pull between what they require of IT to keep organizations secure and productive, and what their employees have come to expect when using mobile devices. We call this the IT Paradox…”
The Enterprise Edition was announced earlier this month for South Korea, and is available in the States starting this week, for a pricey $994 — which puts it at around $50 more than its already costly non-enterprise counterpart. Solving the ‘IT Paradox’ doesn’t come cheap, apparently.
The phone comes loaded with Samsung Knox Configure and Samsung Enterprise Firmware Over the Air (E-FOTA) — both proprietary software designed to let the IT department configure settings remotely. Otherwise it’s a fairly standard version of the Note 8, with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.