RIM's BlackBerry loses General Services Administration business to iPhone

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014


RIM's BlackBerry is facing a rapid erosion of its former dominance of US Government contracts, with the vast US General Services Administration now expanding its support for Apple's iPhone.



According to a report by Bloomberg, the GSA, which manages procurement of more than $70 billion in products and services for US federal agencies, has added Apple's iOS to its approved purchasing list.



The report cited GSA spokesperson Deborah Ruiz as confirming the shift in policy, but didn't indicate when the decision was put into effect. The GSA is the central administrator for federal agencies' spending, and is tasked with minimizing costs and managing suppliers and prices for over 12 millions of products used by more than a million federal employees.



Last August, the GSA released a mobile app for calculating per diem rates for federal employees, and released the app for both BlackBerry devices and Apple's iOS. The agency also developed a native iOS mobile for iOS for public access to its USA.gov site, in addition to providing a general web app.











RIM responded to the news by saying that it "continues to work closely" with its government users, and cited its PlayBook tablet devices as being "the only tablet certified for use by U.S. government agencies."



Last week, however, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced plans to shift from RIM's products and begin issuing its employees iPhone 4 and iPad 2 instead.



NOAA chief information officer Joe Klimavicz cited Apple's devices as being more cost effective to integrate into the agency's current infrastructure than RIM's, which are tied to the company's BlackBerry Enterprise Server, the centralized messaging product and software licensing program that contributes significantly to RIM's revenues.



Last spring, RIM announced plans to extend support for Apple's iOS devices with BES in an apparent move to retain relevance in the enterprise and in government agencies as sales of its BlackBerry devices continued to slip.



Ruiz said the GSA has no plans to join the "bring your own device" trend growing among companies that support employees' own personal devices, but will instead simply add Apple's products to the agency's list of approved devices for government procurement.



The GSA also plans to allow federal purchases of Android devices, although the enterprise in general has avoided enthusiastic adoption of devices running Google's platform due to a lack of robust support for a variety of features that are important to corporate users, including IPSec VPNs, Microsoft's Exchange Server and device administration tools to monitor, manage and police the enforcement of desired policies.





[ View article on AppleInsider ]

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 24
    Won't all these big businesses and administrations have egg on their face when they have to switch back to Android at the end of this year when Apple's marketshare goes down to 2%¡



    Gee, I'll bet AppleInsider won't report on that when it happens¡
  • Reply 2 of 24
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Won't all these big businesses and administrations have egg on their face when they have to switch back to Android at the end of this year when Apple's marketshare goes down to 2%¡



    Gee, I'll bet AppleInsider won't report on that when it happens¡



    Was there any mention of Android in the article? No. So why start something out of nothing and watch the thread go in the crapper. Great for Apple, bad bad for RIM is all need be said.
  • Reply 3 of 24
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    I wonder if we'll see President Obama switch from BB to iPhone.
  • Reply 4 of 24
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    The people of the US should be pleased that Apple is bringing all this business back to the USA.
  • Reply 5 of 24
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Won't all these big businesses and administrations have egg on their face when they have to switch back to Android at the end of this year when Apple's marketshare goes down to 2%¡



    Gee, I'll bet AppleInsider won't report on that when it happens¡



    I see that you post a lot ... I would help us all if you were supportive of reality.
  • Reply 6 of 24
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by madhatter61 View Post


    I see that you post a lot ... I would help us all if you were supportive of reality.



    He is a moderator and supposed to monitor the thread not incite the rabid fandroids.
  • Reply 7 of 24
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    I wonder if we'll see President Obama switch from BB to iPhone.



    If these government agencies keep switching I think eventually we will.
  • Reply 8 of 24
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by madhatter61 View Post


    I see that you post a lot ... I would help us all if you were supportive of reality.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post


    He is a moderator and supposed to monitor the thread not incite the rabid fandroids.



    I guess solipsism has the corner on the 'use of the sarcasm punctuation' market.



    I'll have to remember that in the future.
  • Reply 9 of 24
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post


    Was there any mention of Android in the article? No. So why start something out of nothing and watch the thread go in the crapper. Great for Apple, bad bad for RIM is all need be said.



    PR is so bad at RIM that the only way they get any free notice is when they lose another major account. If it wasn't for their Playbook closeout, they'd have no sales at all.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    I wonder if we'll see President Obama switch from BB to iPhone.



    ..an' bring back 'Merican jobs to gud ol' U S of A.
  • Reply 10 of 24
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post


    Was there any mention of Android in the article? No. So why start something out of nothing and watch the thread go in the crapper. Great for Apple, bad bad for RIM is all need be said.



    ..the same reason his signature is what it is (and which I hope he has the guts to keep after the iPhone 5 is released, and accept the egg on his face). It's not uncommon for a moderator to also be a troll.
  • Reply 11 of 24
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    I guess solipsism has the corner on the 'use of the sarcasm punctuation' market.



    I'll have to remember that in the future.



    It was your delivery. Now, if Bob Hope said it...



  • Reply 12 of 24
    x38x38 Posts: 97member
    "cited its PlayBook tablet devices as being "the only tablet certified for use by U.S. government agencies.""



    That's funny. I sure have seen a lot of iPads in use with at least one U.S. government agency. Haven't seen any RIM or Android tablets yet though.
  • Reply 13 of 24
    Was on a flight Sunday evening and they were testing iPads with the new navigation charts. She said the FAA had approved them and they would be standard issue in a few months? Any one know about this?
  • Reply 14 of 24
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by deepriver View Post


    Was on a flight Sunday evening and they were testing iPads with the new navigation charts. She said the FAA had approved them and they would be standard issue in a few months? Any one know about this?



    It depends on the airline, but several are exploring or are already using the iPad as an electronic flight bag. I think American Airlines is the most recent big US carrier to start trying it.
  • Reply 15 of 24
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by deepriver View Post


    Was on a flight Sunday evening and they were testing iPads with the new navigation charts. She said the FAA had approved them and they would be standard issue in a few months? Any one know about this?



    one of the big airlines, American I think, has already done the ipad transition.



    Also, as a US Citizen, weather you like iOS or not, you have to like the idea of the Government using our tax money on American products rather than Canadian products.
  • Reply 16 of 24
    haarhaar Posts: 563member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Won't all these big businesses and administrations have egg on their face when they have to switch back to Android at the end of this year when Apple's marketshare goes down to 2%¡



    Gee, I'll bet AppleInsider won't report on that when it happens¡



    um, you forgot the sarcasm tag... (it is almost impossible to detect sarcasm in an online post... i should quote the person who said that, but i can not remember to where find the source...)
  • Reply 17 of 24
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by haar View Post


    um, you forgot the sarcasm tag... (it is almost impossible to detect sarcasm in an online post... i should quote the person who said that, but i can not remember to where find the source...)



    He used the indignation point. Wiki that



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post


    Was there any mention of Android in the article? No. So why start something out of nothing and watch the thread go in the crapper. Great for Apple, bad bad for RIM is all need be said.



    Apparently you didn't read the article, or where you upside-down 69¿



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post


    He is a moderator and supposed to monitor the thread not incite the rabid fandroids.



    He's a moderator in addition to being a registered forum member. Either you haven't read the forum rules or forgot the irony mark.
  • Reply 18 of 24
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PhilBoogie View Post


    He used the indignation point. Wiki that



    Unfortunately, what people forget is that not all symbols look the same in all browsers. I'm using Firefox on Windows (unfortunately), and his symbol renders as a lowercase i. It's not the first time he's caught flack for being misinterpreted.
  • Reply 19 of 24
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JupiterOne View Post


    Unfortunately, what people forget is that not all symbols look the same in all browsers. I'm using Firefox on Windows (unfortunately), and his symbol renders as a lowercase i. It's not the first time he's caught flack for being misinterpreted.



    Really? If I had known that I wouldn't have come on that strong. Sorry.
  • Reply 20 of 24
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by haar View Post


    um, you forgot the sarcasm tag... (it is almost impossible to detect sarcasm in an online post... i should quote the person who said that, but i can not remember to where find the source...)



    It's RIGHT there. Can you not see it?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JupiterOne View Post


    Unfortunately, what people forget is that not all symbols look the same in all browsers. I'm using Firefox on Windows (unfortunately), and his symbol renders as a lowercase i. It's not the first time he's caught flack for being misinterpreted.



    It's an upside down exclamation mark. Option+1. That's the sarcasm symbol that Solipsism uses and suggested I use because the ACTUAL one (the backwards question mark) apparently can't be seen on people's computers. If people can't see something assigned to a two-key press, then it needs to NOT be on the keyboard at all.
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