With BlackBerry Z10 all set to release soon, the company’s hopes of regaining all that it had lost amidst the smartphone war in the last few years have come to a sudden halt with one of its largest customers shifting to Apple. This blow from the U.S. military is not a total surprise as many rumours had been going around for some time. However, now the rumours have been proved correct according to a report from Electronista, which claims to have ‘well placed sources’ in the US Department of Defence’s mobile device testing program.
According to those sources, the Pentagon will soon be placing a massive order for 650,000 iOS devices as replacements for the ageing BlackBerry phones currently used by the employees there. The DoD will be buying all Apple devices and not just iPhones and the order will include around 210,000 iPhones, 200,000 iPods, 120,000 iPads and 100,000 iPad Minis. The formal process is expected to take place as soon as the Government’s sequester gets over. The Apple devices would then replace the existing 470,000 BlackBerry devices, half of which are used in the Pentagon itself and the rest in various field offices around the world.
Apple has been chosen over Android after a multitude of stringent tests performed to ensure adequate security for users. Unfortunately, BlackBerry had to end up being the casualty of the sequester because Pentagon had to ways to cut corners and couldn’t afford to give the BlackBerry 10 platform a thorough security check. All the BlackBerry devices will have to be replaced as there is no backwards compatibility with BlackBerry 10 and hence the administrators probably decided to cut losses and move to the oldest and the most-tested mobile OS currently available.
Not just the United States, but the United Kingdom also suddenly seems dissatisfied with Blackberry. A report published by The Guardian last week stated that a UK security firm had rejected the Z10 on grounds of not being secure enough for the British government. BlackBerry denied the report firmly which has now disappeared from the Guardian’s website. Ironically, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins had only recently commented that Apple was not innovating fast enough anymore. This news will definitely come as a shock for him.
