Google and Samsung are partnering to work together to improve enterprise solutions for their customers.

The partnership involves both Google and Samsung combining their respective enterprise solutions (Android Enterprise and Knox Platform for Enterprise) to provide a unified solution that works well for everyone.

With the introduction of Knox Platform for Enterprise (KPE) in Android 8.0 Oreo, Knox features are now built on top of the core Android Enterprise framework. This means that Google's validated management partners can now offer a single foundation for customers to deploy Android Enterprise, while adding supplementary Samsung Knox features as they see fit.

At the Mobile World Congress this week, Google and Samsung are showcasing two new joint projects.

Samsung announced support for OEMConfig, a new Android standard that enables OEMs to create custom device features and controls that can be immediately offered by Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) providers. The premise of OEMconfig is simple: allow an OEM provided app to configure all of the customized OEM-specific features on the device, instead of having EMMs build support for each and every OEM-specific feature in their products. OEMConfig leverages a feature of Android Enterprise known as managed configurations, and is part of the standard published on the Appconfig community.

Expansive feature sets like Samsung KPE, which deliver a broad range of security and fine-grained hardware controls, have presented a challenge for EMMs to implement. With OEMconfig, EMMs can now offer their customers a full complement of KPE features on Android Enterprise without having to build the supplemental feature support in their consoles. They can also make these features available immediately as Samsung releases them.

To support OEMConfig, Samsung will be releasing the Knox Service Plugin (KSP) app this spring. All EMM vendors that have validated their solutions for Android Enterprise can immediately support Samsung KPE features as they are updated through the Knox Service Plugin app.

Android Enterprise offers a simple bulk, over-the-air enrollment method called zero-touch enrollment. Samsung also offers Knox Mobile Enrollment, which provides similar functionality for Samsung devices as part of their Knox Deployment Program (KDP). Both automate device and user enrollment, providing an out-of-the-box configuration experience.

While these enrollment methods have been valuable to those setting up large Android deployments, it has been a burden for operators and resellers to integrate and offer both services. To help alleviate this challenge, Google and Samsung have developed a common client library for service providers with a single set of APIs that will integrate with both Android zero-touch capable devices and Samsung devices. Distribution of the library will begin this spring 2019 with Google and Samsung supporting ecosystem partners as they move to this simplified integration model.