‘Official contracts’ are all the rage for major brands and events looking to secure a reliable and strong partnership with a sponsor, and almost in the mould of major sporting tournaments or The X Factor in the UK, the US Department of Defense’s recent deal is set to be an unusual place to find the phrase ‘supplied by Samsung’.
While this is not a branch off into advanced weaponry that many would fear Apple might try given the inspiration (iAK-47?), the deal between the Department of Defense and Samsung will see the latter become only the second company permitted to supply smartphones to US soldiers for official military use.
The arrangement comes following guarantees that the defence body would have a ‘secure version’ of Google’s Knox operating system on the handsets they are distributing to personnel, and sees Samsung join BlackBerry makers Research In Motion as the only manufacturers able to offer their smartphones in bulk to the DoD.
Samsung’s JK Shin said of the contract: “We are very pleased to announce that the US Department of Defense has approved Samsung Knox-enabled devices for use in DoD networks. This approval enables other government agencies and regulated industries such as health care and financial services to adopt Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets. This is a significant milestone for Samsung as we work to grow our relationships within government and large corporate enterprises.”
The deal is said to just be the beginning of Samsung’s plans for the DoD’s technology needs, with the Samsung Galaxy S4 (running Knox) set to be the first handset they supply in the contract, with future goals of implementing the operating system on ‘more connected devices‘ in the future, potentially leading to a number of secure Samsung-branded tablets and gadgets being included in a soldier’s equipment list.
All this news of official phone suppliers will not be a pleasant one for any stereotypical ‘rednecks’, though, as with American companies not getting a chance to supply smartphones to ‘the troops’, there can only be one phrase applicable to those Canadian and South Korean companies:
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