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Samsung\u2019s<\/a> mobile operation\u00a0has taken a big hit of late, with profits plunging 30% in the last quarter<\/a> in the wake of the Note 7 recall. But today, the company is announcing an acquisition of a wireless\u00a0enterprise startup that speaks to how it wants to grow\u00a0other areas of its business to offset setbacks like this, as well as the larger overall slowdown<\/a> in handset sales globally.<\/p>\n Samsung is acquiring a company called Tachyon<\/a>, a specialist in mobile device configuration and security for businesses based out of Reston, Virginia. Samsung plans to integrate Tachyon into\u00a0its enterprise offer\u00a0to help businesses\u00a0speed up\u00a0the secure configuration of third-party apps on their Samsung devices, regardless of whether the third-party app\u00a0provides APIs for this purpose.<\/p>\n Tachyon had already been a partner of Samsung\u2019s<\/a> prior to the deal, and while it was built to work across all Android devices, the startup tech will now be used solely on Samsung devices.<\/p>\n Tachyon \u2014 a physics term for\u00a0a particle that travels faster than the speed of light \u2014 was developed as\u00a0part of a larger enterprise mobility solutions startup called Kaprica<\/a>, which Samsung is not buying.<\/p>\n Kaprica will continue to build out the other part of its\u00a0business after the spinoff, focusing specifically on a connected vehicle security service called\u00a0RunSafe<\/a>. CEO\/founder Doug Britton\u00a0and Samsung both confirm\u00a0Kaprica will continue to work with Samsung in that capacity as a \u201cGold Level\u201d partner.<\/p>\n The financial terms\u00a0of the acquisition\u00a0are not being disclosed, but Samsung and Kaprica confirm that Samsung is taking on several parts of the business:\u00a0Tachyon employees, the technology\u00a0and related IP, and (importantly) Tachyon\u2019s customers, which included organizations in federal law enforcement, the Department of Defense (DoD), hospitals and\u00a0and vehicle fleets in the US and Europe. To date, Kaprica has raised around $700,000 from investors that it declined to name.<\/p>\n Samsung had already been offering enterprise customers some device management solutions before this, both through its\u00a0Knox mobile security service\u00a0and other mobile enterprise offerings.<\/p>\n \u201cKnox Custom Configurator (KCC) allowed for broad automation of the device configurations, where settings could be accessed via an API,\u201d Jongshin Kim, VP\u00a0of Global Mobile B2B team at Samsung Electronics, said.<\/p>\n In contract,\u00a0Tachyon has more features and simplicity to it: the company claims\u00a0its automated process brings the time needed to configure thousands of devices from days and hours to \u201cjust minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTachyon takes that even further, allowing automation of any third-party application, regardless of provided APIs,\u201d said Kim. Tachyon also has\u00a0other features, such as the ability to update and control apps even if a\u00a0device is offline \u2014 not an unusual\u00a0scenario in highly secure government, financial, and healthcare use cases, he added.<\/p>\n There are likely other reasons why\u00a0Tachyon may have become an interesting acquisition target for Samsung.<\/p>\n Britton said that prior to the deal, Tachyon had been testing its technology with other handset makers. So by buying it, it helps Samsung\u00a0develop more differentiated and unique offerings and keep Tachyon\u2019s technology out of competitors\u2019 hands.<\/p>\n Offering efficient configuration is also a competitive advantage: Britton said the closest product in the market to what Tachyon has been doing is Apple\u2019s Device Enrollment Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSamsung saw an opportunity to make this a platform-proprietary capability,\u201d he said. \u201cOn Android we\u2019ve managed to stay ahead of the game\u00a0and there isn\u2019t really something like what we offer\u00a0that can bring together\u00a0the degree of automation and security that we can.\u201d<\/p>\n Another reason is may be\u00a0because of the security measures that Tachyon had developed.<\/p>\n Britton noted that the recent Mirai DDoS attack<\/a> that took down several major web sites was carried out through\u00a0a botnet, created via code that quietly sat on a wide sweep of compromised\u00a0IoT devices, including\u00a0ordinary consumer electronics products\u00a0like tablets and web cams. Securing against these kinds of loopholes \u2014 which can arise in apps, especially when they\u00a0are updated and otherwise manipulated \u2014 is \u201cexactly our sweet spot,\u201d Britton said.<\/p>\n Samsung\u2019s\u00a0Knox itself has been pinpointed<\/a> for having its own security vulnerabilities,\u00a0and so it makes sense for the company to ferret out and acquire technology that can counteract that.<\/p>\n Samsung remains the world\u2019s biggest handset maker, but it has seen a lot of pressure on growth as saturation continues to permeate the market, newer\u00a0competitors move in, and it faces some of its own specific problems, such as the impact its brand might face after it had to recall its faulty, overheating Note 7 devices.<\/p>\n Figures published today by Canalys<\/a> noted that overall smartphone shipments in the last quarter totaled 355 million devices, with Samsung taking 25% of that number with 76 million devices. However, that\u2019s down from 84 million a year ago.<\/p>\n You can see why Samsung is acquiring a startup to build out its mobile enterprise business to offset some of those declines. Samsung once had very high ambitions for its mobile enterprise, B2B business: in 2014, the company ambitiously projected<\/a> that it would account for one-quarter, or $100 billion, of Samsung Electronics\u2019\u00a0revenues by 2020.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Featured Image: AP<\/small><\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/po7ulO0NNDs\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Samsung\u2019s mobile operation\u00a0has taken a big hit of late, with profits plunging 30% in the last quarter in the wake of the Note 7 recall. But today, the company is <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-1219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t