Research In Motion recently unveiled some of their business features for the Blackberry Playbook and encryption was a huge facet. One of the great strengths of RIM approach to the market in smartphones was tremendous encryption and secure email. Not skipping a beat they are making the Playbook the tablet of choice for companies looking towards an easily managed IT device. Although Blackberry has dominated the secure market in terms of encryption, Google is baking software encryption into their latest offering Android 3.0.
Most Android 3.0 tablets including the Motorola Xoom and LG G-Slate will be utilizing these new features. Tucked inside of the settings menu is a new feature called ‘Encrypt Tablet’ which makes the tablet and all of the software locked to a password and not only that but utilizes encryption to protect data.
It is a positive step in the right direction for Google to offer encryption for its Android partners and developers on the platform. They certainly at this point are not competition for RIM in terms of secure email, Instant messages and so on. Just ask India, Saudi Arabia and everyone else that is imploring RIM for encryption breaking tools.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.