Motorola Solutions Significantly Ups the Ante on Enterprise Android-Based Solutions

Motorola Solutions, the hugely more successful of the two companies that emerged when Motorola split into two companies (you know the other one – Motorola Mobility, now part of Google), has emerged as a solid provider of mission-critical communication solutions and services for enterprise and government customers. Actually, it’s more accurate to say they’ve continued to do so following the split.

In any case, today, October 1^st,  the company announced three new enterprise mobile computers built on the most popular version of the Android operating system – Jelly Bean. The devices also support the new Extensions (Mx) by Motorola Solutions, which delivers critical new security features, and the fourth generation of its RhoMobile Suite cross-platform development framework. This new set of technologies and development tools will help businesses adapt, enhance, integrate and secure the Android OS for enterprise customers.

As of today Motorola now delivers a significant lineup of purpose-built and specifically Android-based mobile computers – something enterprises are now demanding within the ruggedized space. The ET1, MC40 and MC67 enterprise mobile computers are now available and now run the Jelly Bean version of Android OS, as well as the newly fortified Mx enhancements noted above. Android Jelly Bean delivers key features that are particularly important to enterprises. These include security enhancements, better graphics support and improved logging and support capabilities. The new Motorola mobile computers can, of course, run Android applications that have been developed natively or through frameworks such as RhoMobile Suite.


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Extensions (Mx) by Motorola Solutions

We’re not quite sure why Moto has added that “by Motorola Solutions” to Extensions – seems rather obvious to us, but we suppose it isn’t unlike “Stylings by…”. Mx is a suite of security, device management and performance extensions that have been added to the standard Android OS to make it ready for the enterprise. To be clear, the suite is specific to Android. With Mx, IT administrators are now able to strictly enforce what business applications are allowed to run on a device, and mobile device management (MDM) vendors can provide real-time remote management control.

Mx delivers enterprise-class data capture features as well as fast and intelligent pre-emptive roaming and edge awareness to provide mobile workers with a superior wireless experience. Mx is written on the commercial Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and will not compromise Android functions nor create application compatibility issues. It aims to effectively overcome Android’s reputation for being unsafe for enterprise use. With Mx any such concerns are entirely removed.

RhoMobile Suite 4.0

RhoMobile Suite 4.0 is Motorola Solutions’ next generation set of cross-platform development tools that help businesses easily mobilize their workers, no matter what OS, device or technology is in their hands. Developers are able to write, integrate, host and manage applications that work across platforms, which now includes complete support for iOS 7 and Windows Phone 8, in addition to, of course, Android Jelly Bean, on both consumer and enterprise devices.

RhoMobile Suite 4.0 simplifies the development process by creating a common single set of APIs for both JavaScript and Ruby that extend across all device types and operating systems. Now, JavaScript developers can build RhoMobile apps and easily integrate them into device capabilities. Enterprises, channel partners and other independent software vendors (ISVs) will easily be able to reduce costs and improve time-to-market with their applications by using RhoMobile Suite 4.0 to write an application once and run it across multiple legacy and future OS platforms and devices.

The combination of MX and RhoMobile offers enterprises a unique and powerful suite of services that completely enhance the new hardware products. It is a win-win for enterprises that must deploy rugged devices but are almost always behind the curve when it comes to both the quality of the hardware and the quality of IT services and end user software. These are all issues fully remedied by the new Motorola hardware and software services released today.

We’re glad to see Motorola Solutions step up its game here. In the end, it also means that enterprises in the retail and other ruggedized spaces can step up their games as well.