Samsung has landed a significant deal for Telefonica to sell its Knox software, just months after a report that cited problems and delays with the smartphone security solution for enterprises.

The announcement follows the Korean vendor’s launch of version 2.0 of Knox at last month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

This latest version of the Android-based solution, which is designed to fit with enterprise BYOD strategies, enables employees to more easily separate work and personal data on their mobile device, according to Samsung.

However, a report four months ago described the problems encountered by Samsung with developing Knox, which included building an enterprise support network, as well as the technology itself.

But now the vendor can point to a new agreement with Telefonica that has the potential for take-up across the operator’s Latin American and European footprint.

And it follows a deal with 3 Hong Kong, also announced in Barcelona. “3 Hong Kong is proposed to be the first operator in the world to conduct Proof of Concept (PoC) and trials to develop ‘split billing management’ to cater for customer needs,” Samsung announced at the time.

Split billing enables an enterprise to separate an individual’s personal and corporate data use.

The vendor also used Congress to talk up user numbers for Knox since its launch in October last year. It has sold “over 25 million Knox-enabled devices and has over 1 million active Knox users today. On average, 210,000 Knox-enabled devices are being activated per month which is about 7,000 devices each day,” it said.

But the solution also needed to change, said JK Shin (pictured), President and CEO, Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics.

“Thanks to the rapid adoption of Knox over the past 5 months since its first commercial availability, we needed to evolve the Samsung Knox platform to meet the changing needs of our customers and the enterprise as a whole,” Shin commented (Shin was talking about the launch of version 2.0 of the Knox solution).

Samsung also announced in Barcelona that Knox will support a range of Microsoft enterprise solutions as the vendor looks to further boost its credentials. These include Microsoft Workplace Join, Windows Intune, Windows Azure as well as the software giant’s cloud printing solution.