News & Updates

AppDirect, Samsung Team Up to Make Mobile History

By Dan Saks / February 24, 2014

It’s not everyday that you see history being made, but today was one of those days. Earlier this evening, Samsung took to the stage at Mobile World Congress to announce the launch of its KNOX™ Marketplace, a web-based, one-stop shop for KNOX mobile security products and leading business apps. With this AppDirect-powered marketplace, Samsung becomes the first technology company to launch a mobile application store that enables business to buy and manage cloud-based apps.

I’ve been in Barcelona this week, taking in the sights at MWC and meeting with leaders in the mobile industry. I had the privilege to be present for Samsung’s announcement, and the excitement from the crowd was palpable. At AppDirect, we strive to put powerful technology into the hands of businesses so they can be more competitive, and it was amazing to see this shared vision with Samsung on full display on such a huge, international stage.

Samsung is our first partner in the mobile industry, and we are incredibly excited to work with the world’s largest technology company to help distribute best-in-class business solutions to millions of customers worldwide. The KNOX Marketplace demonstrates the true versatility of AppDirect’s technology, showing that our platform is an ideal way to deliver products on any side of a service provider’s business, whether broadband and wireline services, or SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS, or, starting today, mobile.

Our first mobile marketplace is also having a huge impact in the sector. Over the years, there’s been a lot of debate about “cloud-first” and “mobile-first” solutions and strategies. The KNOX Marketplace changes the conversation; the AppDirect platform is enabling seamless interoperability across these technologies, from cloud-first apps, like Box and Google Apps, to mobile-first solutions, in this case the KNOX app container on Samsung mobile devices. With AppDirect, you can get the benefits of both without needing to prioritize one over the other.

I’m just one of more than 70,000 people from all over the world that are here in Barcelona for MWC, a huge testament to the size and importance of the mobile industry. With the KNOX Marketplace, AppDirect is thrilled to lead the way in powering this critical part of the global cloud economy. You can read more about the KNOX Marketplace announcement in our press release, and follow @AppDirect on Twitter for more dispatches from the AppDirect team at MWC.