The United States Air Force is replacing 5000 legacy BlackBerry smartphones with Apple's iPhone, and eventually all of their BlackBerry users will have to make the changeover. The announcement, reported by Defense News, comes as the future of BlackBerry within the Department of Defense is debated, with the chips seeming to fall on the side of transitioning away from a network supporting a mish-mash of BlackBerry 6 and 7 devices to a mix of modern devices — though apparently without BlackBerry 10 in that mix. The situation has changed dramatically since this time last year, when the Department of Defense was adamant they weren't dropping BlackBerry.
Brigadier General Kevin Wooten, the communications director for Air Force Space Command (which manages the Air Force's IT infrastructure), said that "in order to keep costs down and save on network resources, BlackBerrys will be turned in and shut off once the user is transitioned to an iOS device." Additionally, anybody who hopes to activate a new BlackBerry on the Air Force network will require approval from the Air Force Space Command. The general that's attached to his BlackBerry is going to have to write an awfully compelling memo justifying why he should get a new one.
Both iOS and Samsung's Knox-enabled Android smartphones have been approved for use on Department of Defense networks, though the process of adding those new devices has been slow. Given the nature of government purchasing contracts, that's little surprise. BlackBerry 10 has also received DoD approval. Transitioning the tens of thousands of BlackBerry smartphones onto iOS and maybe Android will take time and money, the latter of which the US government has been more prudent about than in recent years.
But it seems that either way, BlackBerry hasn't presented a compelling case to the U.S.A.F. The Air Force has long led the advancement of technology in the Department of Defense (they are the ones with stealth planes and satellites, after all), so where the airmen go, so too will the Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines of the United States Armed Forces.
Read more
BlackBerry receive new U.S. Department of Defense approval
As part of the announcements coming out of the BlackBerry Security Summit, BlackBerry has now announced that its multi-OS EMM platform BES12 and the latest BlackBerry OS 10.3.2 for smartphones have achieved STIG approval from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) for use at the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).
BlackBerry issues statement on Air Force switch: 'There is nothing more secure than a BlackBerry'
Yesterday we reported on the plans put into motion by the United States Air Force that would transition the branch of the military away from BlackBerry devices and towards iPhone and Android products. Understandably, security is a major concern for the Armed Forces, and BlackBerry has been known for years for taking security very seriously. Competitors have been stepping up their game...
T-Mobile tries to coax BlackBerry users to upgrade to the iPhone 5s in its latest mailer
A longtime CrackBerry reader forwarded me the mailer he just received from T-Mobile, trying to persuade him to upgrade to the iPhone 5s. T-Mobile positions the upgrade for BlackBerry users by saying "Switch to iPhone 5s and get powerful communications and productivity apps — with the ease of use that Apple is known for." Of course, powerful communications and productivity are words...
BlackBerry 10 or iOS - Which keyboard is faster at word prediction?
It has long since been known that BlackBerry offers the best QWERTY keyboards out there, there's no question about it. It's reached the point now where even those who have moved on from BlackBerry still agree with that statement and companies are now trying to get away with insanely similarly styled keyboards. But what about the BlackBerry virtual keyboard? BlackBerry is looking to...