Lenovo Will Soon Distribute Devices Powered By the Esper Foundation OS

Keumars Afifi-sabet reports via TechRadar: Lenovo has the green light to see a portfolio of new enterprise-focused devices powered by Esper Foundation -- a custom Android operating system -- and bundled with a complementary mobile device management (MDM) platform. The firm's first device running Esper Foundation is the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70a, an all-in-one desktop PC fitted with an up to 12th-Gen Intel Core i9 CPU, alongside 16GB DDR4 RAM and up to 512GB SSD. It'll be followed by the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q, M90n-1 IoT, and the ThinkEdge SE30 v2 machines by the end of 2023. Esper Foundation is based on Android 11 and has customizable branding, peripheral compatibility, quarterly security patches, and three years of support. The MDM system, meanwhile, remotely deploys, manages, and updates devices from a single view.

By integrating a custom version of Android in its PCs, Lenovo is banking on the Esper Foundation OS appealing to businesses as an alternative to Windows, as well as Google's own ChromeOS. With platforms like Esper's, there may well be a means to find a rival to compete with Windows in the enterprise, particularly in highly niche industries such as the retail, hospitality, and healthcare industries -- at which Esper Foundation is directed. "This collaboration is another step forward in Lenovo's drive to meet changing customer demand across retail, hospitality, healthcare, and other industries," said Johanny Payero, Lenovo's director of global advanced solutions marketing and strategy. "Dedicated devices are proliferating across several key industries, and our new joint solution with Esper allows us to deliver the best of Android with the consistency and predictability of Lenovo's x86 devices."

A built in MDM is a pretty good feature

[Revek]

Lets face it maintaining multiple mobile devices in any sized organization is a huge added expense. Something like this is a good selling point. Provided they don't try to turn it into a additional source of income.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

Came here to say that too, never heard of Esper OS but I know a large number of organisations who would kill for effective MDM for devices they give to employees.

If you've every tried to use Windows MDM, which seems to be the de facto standard for this, to do anything, you'd want the promise of an alternative too.

Why fork Android?

[Pinky's Brain]

Why not ChromeOS? With 16GB the virtualization approach isn't really an issue.

Re:

[Gibgezr]

I bet they want to run it on phones and tablets, and maybe it's easier to do that as a fork of Android.

Re:

[Pinky's Brain]

Tablets are far closer to laptops than mobile phones and Android is cripplingly terrible for tablets and laptops.

PS. the article has it wrong, this isn't about competing with Microsoft ... it's a futile attempt at stopping the incursion of Apple, but it's far too timid.

Year of the Linux Desktop

[louzer]

The earliest reference we have of "Year of Linux on Desktop" is from Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita by Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli in 1494.

He writes:

Sono sicuro che il prossimo anno tutti utilizzerà Linux

Esper Foundation

[rossdee]

That sounds like a group of telepaths

Three years of support

[kerubi]

Only three years of support - and thatâ(TM)s from the release date. Only the ignorant and greedy will fall for such electronic waste. They will probably buy the devices cheap from a clearance sale when the security updates have already stopped.

This will fail

[Uldis Segliņš]

Android lacks a lot of what a general purpose OS requires. It's security model is a joke. Yes, you can do something. But not whatever you want. Even Windows is better in that regard.

I wonder

[Pravetz-82]

Does it come with Esper Foundation User Control Kit?

I don't get it.

[serviscope_minor]

What do they intend to run on this desktop?

3 years isn't a lot of support, especially for enterprise uses.

Re:

[markdavis]

>"What do they intend to run on this desktop?"

A browser. Since so much is moving to be web-based, a kind of "thin client" based only on web is quite possible for all types of work now.

Not that I would want to do it in Android. I believe Linux would be a much better choice.

>"3 years isn't a lot of support, especially for enterprise uses."

That is true. I think some of these short support periods are just greed, forcing people to continuously upgrade their hardware when it is totally unnecessary.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

I was thinking browser yeah, but it's got 512G of storage and only 3 years support.

Given well established tools exist now for managing windows and Linux machines, a browser only machine running one of those would be somewhat better value. It's even aimed at big customers who already know how to manage large fleets.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

ACcidentally replied to the parent (my) post not yours.