Recently, there has been a shift in the traditional way government manages mobile devices. Many of today’s U.S. federal agencies are moving from RIM’s blackberry devices to Apple’s iPhone. One reason for this movement is that government employees are tired of being forced to use their out of date government issued Blackberry’s. They have been asking their IT management to allow them to use their personal Apple devices at work for some time now. Agencies are now seeing that Apple products are more technologically sound and they are starting to make the switch.
A few weeks ago, the General Services Administration (GSA) decided to distribute iPhone’s (along with some android devices) to a portion of their employee base which clocks in at 17,000. In response, GSA Chief Information Officer, Casey Coleman, stated, “We actively seek to be progressive in our adoption of new technologies so that we can learn the lessons which will inform our client and customer agencies as they seek to go down a similar path”. Many view this decision as creating a domino effect that is spreading to other federal agencies.
GSA is not the only agency making these changes within the mobile devices realm. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has announced that they will stop using Blackberry’s towards the end of 2012 and start using Apple devices. NOAA has about 3,000 of its 20,000 employees using Blackberry devices now and are looking to start using iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S as replacements. NOAA is also taking further steps and will implement the use of Apple’s iPad tablet for future use.
IT Directors at many Government agencies will see this move as a progressive and a much needed advancement. They don’t have to spend valuable work hours dealing with old-fashioned, sub-par technology. Government Agencies are becoming more and more receptive to emerging technologies that save money and increase production.
This is a big blow to RIM. I feel as if government and business workers are really the only two markets that Blackberry still had any hold on. I rarely see someone in my generation using a Blackberry. I think it’s a bit of a shame that Blackberry has allowed itself to lose the mobile race.
@Corey, I agree with you. Many companies are seduced by their own sucess and fail to continuously improve and properly service customers. Hence, a loss of competitive edge. My personal and business phones are BlackBerryies. It’s easy to go with what we know or what has been reliable for us. But, I am certainly open to new techonology. You have to keep up with it.
Yup, but there are still pros to Blackberry’s, they are just dwindling. I, for one, like the design of certain models of Blackberries. They also appear sturdier to me than my Android, and the battery life is probably better in general. I don’t need a gigantic screen for games or movies, actually I wish I couldn’t play games on my phone it’s just a distraction. As someone who works largely in social media, however, I need the great social media apps offered on the Android Market, and there’s several other apps I need that aren’t on RIM phones.