BlackBerry didn’t have any luck in the tablet market. It only released one tablet, called the PlayBook, and it’s safe to say that it flopped. Since then the company has talked about a new one but hasn’t been too serious about it. As part of the growing partnership between the two companies BlackBerry and Samsung have teamed up to work on a tablet. The device, called the SecuTablet, is actually a collaboration between Samsung, Secusmart and IBM.
For those who are unaware Secusmart is a German company that specializes in security products, it was acquired by BlackBerry last year.
Dubbed “high-security” the SecuTablet is actually a modified version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5. It features the Secusmart Security Card which enables voice and data encryption. IBM’s “app wrapping” ensures that secure work apps are kept separately from relatively unsecure personal apps.
SecuTablet will be released later this year. It is not being aimed at the consumer market. This tablet actually seeks to fulfill the needs of governments and corporations who want to deploy tablets in the workplace but are apprehensive about safety and security.
Technically this can’t be called a BlackBerry tablet since it doesn’t run the company’s BB10 OS and the fact that it wasn’t designed or developed by Samsung. It’s basically providing the software that makes the tablet more secure.
The Federal office for Information Security in Germany is now assessing the tablet so that it may certify that it can be used by the government to handle classified information.
Filed in . Read more about BlackBerry, Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and Samsung.