Last week’s local launch of the Kindle Fire means updates to Amazon’s Android-based Fire OS are finally of interest to Australians. Version 3.1 includes some consumer-centric updates such as integration with the Amazon-owned GoodReaders boom enthusiast community, but also incorporates a number of enterprise-centric enhancements designed to make the Fire a potential contender in the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) field.
Here’s the summary of the business-oriented features direct from Amazon’s upgrade announcement:
Fire OS 3.1 delivers the ability to connect to secure enterprise Wi-Fi networks and access corporate apps, documents and resources like SharePoint; native VPN client for instant access to corporate networks; and a native SCEP (Simple Certificate Exchange Protocol) client to retrieve digital certificates for secure resources. Fire OS also now supports Kerberos authentication, which enables the ability to browse secure Intranet websites from the Silk browser. The new Kindle Fire tablets also include Kindle-specific device management APIs that integrate with existing mobile device management (MDM) systems to make it easy for IT departments to manage Kindle Fire.
As we’ve noted before, support for manufacturer-specific extensions is a critical factor when managing tablets in a BYOD environment. It will be interesting to see how quickly (it at all) MDM vendors support Amazon’s offering.
Fire OS 3.1 will be rolled out automatically over-the-air. If you want to upgrade immediately, hit Amazon’s updates page.
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