Switzerland-headquartered Silent Circle announced what they describe as "the world’s first enterprise privacy platform," which includes a combination of devices, software and services. The platform is "based upon and built from a fundamentally different mobile architecture – ZRTP" and the launch includes "the Blackphone 2 and the world’s first privacy focused tablet, Blackphone+", said the firm.
“Personal privacy has become an enterprise issue”, says Silent Circle co-founder and chief scientist Phil Zimmermann. “The recent Sony experience shows that enterprises too have a responsibility to up their game to protect the privacy of their own people and their partners.”
“Traditional security solutions have failed global enterprise in a mobile world and make data and privacy breaches feel inevitable to most enterprises”, said Mike Janke, former Navy SEAL and now co-founder and chairman of the Silent Circle Board at a press conference at Mobile World Congress 2015. “[These breaches] have moved privacy firmly to the top of the boardroom agenda.”
“Today we unveiled the vision to drive the second stage of growth for Silent Circle," said Bill Conner, president and CEO of Silent Circle. "Enterprises have been underserved when it comes to privacy...we’re here to fix that.
The first generation Blackphone was launched at Mobile Congress 2014 and was recently named one of Time Magazine’s best 25 inventions of 2014, said the firm.
The new Silent Circle Enterprise Privacy Platform includes the original Blackphone, the Blackphone 2, and a tablet called the Blackphone+. The latter two devices are scheduled for the second half of 2015.
The devices are driven by PrivatOS: a Android-based operating system developed by Silent Circle to address modern privacy concerns. The latest version, PrivatOS 1.1, includes Spaces: an OS-level virtualization and management solution. Silent Circle also announced MDM partnerships with Citrix, Soti and Good.
Silent Circle’s core set of applications for private, encrypted communication, Silent Suite, offers peer-to-peer key negotiation and management, says the firm. Importantly, it's available on PrivatOS, iOS, and Android. Features include: Silent Phone for private voice and video calls in HD clarity over a peer to-peer encrypted VoIP service; Silent Meeting; a secure conference calling system; Silent Contacts, an automatically encrypting address book; and Silent Text, an unlimited encrypted text services with file-transfer capability and burn functionality to destroy selected messages automatically.
On the services side, the firm rolled out an app store: Silent Store – pre-installed on Blackphone devices and featuring apps from the developer community vetted by Silent Circle. Also: encrypted calling plan Silent World; and Silent Manager: a web-based solution for enterprises managing plans, users and devices.
Last week, Silent Circle last announced its buyout of its SGP Technologies joint venture between Silent Circle and Geeksphone, giving Silent Circle a 100% ownership stake in SGP Technologies and the Blackphone product set. The firm also announced it had raised approximately $50m in a private, common equity round.
More information at https://www.silentcircle.com
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