Google employees may be getting new tablets, Motorola’s CEO said on Monday.
Speaking at a Morgan Stanley conference, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha said it’s clear that his company’s focus on enterprise is paying off in that it is having conversations with enterprises wishing to buy tens of thousands of tablets. Motorola last week began offering its Xoom tablet, the first to run the Honeycomb version of Android, which was designed for tablets.
When asked why those enterprises are choosing to go with an Android tablet rather than Apple’s iPad, Jha joked: “One of them is Google so I think I understand why that is.” Google may be more inclined to buy tablets running its own Android software rather than a device from competitor Apple.
Google did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Motorola has been adding security features to its Android products to make up for what many CIOs say is a security shortcoming in Android devices. Motorola recently bought 3LM, a company that offers a management console that enterprises can use to set policies around security and network configurations on Android phones used by mobile workers.
“Security is important. We have a level of security that CIOs need and with 3LM we feel pretty good we can deliver that,” Jha said.
He also said that the biggest number of enterprise Android activations are on Motorola devices.
In addition, enterprises are interested in Android devices because of the ability to customize them, he said — in fact, he said, that’s the biggest factor driving enterprises to choose Android.
Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy’s e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com