Pentagon to Move From BlackBerry to Android, iPhones
RIM experiencing several arge firms moving thousands of employees from BlackBerry to iPhones and Android-powered smartphones.
RIM has been dealt a further blow with the news of the Pentagon due to move up of to 8 million employees from its BlackBerry devices to Android-powered smartphones and Apple's iPhone.
The Defense Department is planning to hire a contractor to build a system that will both manage and secure at least 162,500 Android devices, in addition to Apple products including the iPhone and iPad. It's possible that the system may be expanded to handle 8 million devices, the department confirmed.
The project is “a significant step towards delivering a secure mobile communications capability’’ to the agency, it said. The Pentagon wishes to gives employees the opportunity to access its network through a broader range of mobile devices so it can “take advantage of the increasing wireless capabilities that exist and that are developing in the marketplace."
The Pentagon’s Defense Information Systems Agency will grant the contract to a single company by April, with bids due by November 27.
Although the Defense Department is not instructing contractors to propose systems that can manage RIM devices, it “desires” a system that can also handle BlackBerry smartphones, in addition to Android and iOS devices.
Last week, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said it will end the contract it holds with RIM, subsequently leading to 17,600 employees moving away from BlackBerry devices to the iPhone. Preceding that was consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton dropping BlackBerry in favor of the iPhone and Android smartphones for about 25,000 employees.

I guess that's a decent move, considering the state RIM is in.
wat?
If government emails or documents get leaked or hacked into from iOS or Android...that will likely mean the government will have to reconsider BlackBerry and in the long run potentially waste tax dollars if those platforms prove to be too insecure.
One contract the Pentagon should consider should be BlackBerry Mobile Fusion since it allows any iOS, Android or BB device access to their secure network.
b-b-but they need to spend those taxpayers money anyway...
BTW, did you notice, no one is choosing the W8 phone/platform? Microsoft should start looking for a spot in the trashbin of history, right next to AOL.
1st, There is NO MARIA,
2nd, How dumb do you think people are? 7k in month o_0
This is a big missed opportunity for Microsoft. This is where they had a chance to outshine Apple.
Heard of that Linux thing that most servers run on? Ignorance abounds......open source is no less secure than closed source, arguably it is more so as the code is heavily vetted by more than just the QA department of Apple or Microsoft