BlackBerry seems to want to get in the tablet niche and despite flopping with the PlayBook, the company is planning to take another crack at it. Only this time, they won't be trying to develop a tablet on their own. They will team up with another company whose name is no stranger to Android tablets, Samsung.
Both BlackBerry and Samsung are said to be working on a tablet which is believed to be a modified version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5. The resulting tablet will be called SecuTablet, which is really a collaboration between Samsung, Secusmart and IBM.
Secusmart is a German company which was acquired by Blackberry just last year.
The said tablet, reportedly made for business and government sectors, will make use of the Secusmart Security Card that should raise the bar as far as device security is concerned. The security function includes voice and data encryption which should help separate secure apps from the personal and unsecure ones that would be installed on the tablet.
The Secutablet is scheduled to be released later this year which could help address business and government concerns when it comes to device security once used by personnel who have been issued tablets.
As far as government use is concerned, security clearance tests are said to be underway by the German government. The Germany Federal Office for Information Security is currently assessing the viability of the SecuTablet and see if it is secure enough to hold classified information.
BlackBerry however made it clear that for now, the SecuTablet has been pegged for German government use only. As far as availability for foreign governments is concerned, there are no immediate plans for now.
