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Halliburton To Dump Blackberry For iOS

grub writes "Halliburton has decided to drop Research In Motion's Blackberry platform in favor of Apple's iOS for its workforce. 'An internal newsletter outlined the plan for the nearly 70,000 employees who work for Halliburton in more than 70 countries. "Over the next year, we will begin expanding the use of our mobile technology by transitioning from the BlackBerry (RIM) platform that we currently use to smartphone technology via the iPhone."'"

15 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Physical keyboard? by vlm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not saying that the iPhone isn't a good phone, but it has no physical keyboard. Many employees use their phone for answering email; to me the iPhone seems like it would really inconvenient for use in this manner. Does anybody else use an iPhone as their primary work device?

    Brevity of reply = feature not bug

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  2. Re:Physical keyboard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Does anybody else use an iPhone as their primary work device?"

    Only while driving.

  3. Re:Physical keyboard? by MrHanky · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh, don't say that. With autocorrect, an on-screen touch keyboard is just as fast and arrogant as a maniacal keyboard.

  4. Feds won't like it by gruntled · · Score: 4, Insightful

    iOS does not have a FIPS 140-2 certified encryption module associated with it, meaning that viewing non-public government data on their e-mail system would be a contract violation at worst and might expose them to criminal liability. Aren't these guys basically government contractors?

    1. Re:Feds won't like it by d00f · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is also no reason why the Android couldn't do the same. Lawyers don't care about whether it would have been possible for some company to modify their product to meet the requirements of a contract - they care what was done.

      RIM designed their infrastructure and device from the ground up to be secure and there is a reason why nearly all the law firms, government contractors and big business uses their devices. Apple designed their iPhone around the best user experience - 2 different objectives and this explains why they've had great success with the home type users.

    2. Re:Feds won't like it by gruntled · · Score: 4, Informative

      You can think of FIPS 140-1 as what's commonly referred to as encryption strength (that is, the type of encryption, like AES 256). FIPS 140-2 is a certification that the encryption you're using under 140-1 has been implemented properly and it looks like this chart combines both one and two. To the best of my knowledge there's no 140-2 certification for iOS.

  5. Re:Physical keyboard? by twofishy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yup. Used BlackBerry for about 5 years before switching to iPhone when the 4 came out. It took a day or to to get used to it, but these days I'm just as fast typing on the screen as I ever was on the BlackBerry phone. And the phone a whole is a lot better than the last BlackBerry I owned.

  6. Re:Seems fitting by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A company like Halliburton, is a big company. Most of you the only reason to hate it was because of its connection with a former Vice President who was a War Hawk Republican. Like all Large companies they do a lot of things. And the IT decision to move from Blackberry to iOS, probably isn't part of some evil plot. Just probably more innocently trying to give customers a better tool for their job.
    Blackberry had some really large problems in the past few years. Network outages, lack of interests in developing 3rd party apps. Most likely a lot of employees wanted iOS devices more then ones who liked their blackberry. So they made an IT decision to switch... No big deal.

    If Apple messes up or something that is far superior pops up then you will see the market switch again.

    This isn't some Evil attracted to Evil, liberal hippy crap. To big companies often thing that are ethically wrong... Yes. Are all their decisions based on Evil... No.
    Sometimes an IT Decision is just that.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  7. Re:Physical keyboard? by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Funny

    typing this on i touchscreen keyboard

    Comedy gold!

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  8. Re:Physical keyboard? by swalve · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm not even that large of a person, no sausage fingers for me, and I find that I am unable to use onscreen keyboards with any kind of accuracy either. Four years ago when I was buying my first smartphone, I honestly wanted an iPhone. But when I tried to type on it, nothing but gibberish. Picked up the Blackberry and it fit like a glove. And it still works. Maybe onscreen keyboard prediction technology has gotten better, but I doubt it based on what I see in various forums.

    Part of the problem, I think, is that the keyboards include predictive word choosing, and people don't really normally look at the spelling of a word when they are reading. They just see a word that starts and ends with the right letters and is roughly the same size.

  9. Re:Seems fitting by P-niiice · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A company like Halliburton, is a big company. Most of you the only reason to hate it was because of its connection with a former Vice President who was a War Hawk Republican.

    Yeah, that's why we should hate them. It couldn't also be it's support and coverup of a gang rape committed by employees, or it's opposition to anti-human trafficing among other things.

  10. Re:Seems fitting by DrgnDancer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a fairly liberal hippy type person, I have to say he's still pretty much right. You can't just say "Halliburton has done evil things, therefore all things done by Halliburton are evil". I disagree with a lot of things about the company, and I take anything they say with a grain of salt, but I seriously doubt they have "Chief Evil Officer" who's job it is to double check all corporate actions and make sure they meet the necessary standard of evil. Most likely enough people complained about Blackberry that IT decided to switch platforms. It's news because it shows that RIM is seriously hemorrhaging big customers. If they can't hold onto the Halliburtons, they're in even worse shape than a lot of people thought. I believe it was just a week or so ago that I was responding to a post about how "regulate" industries were never going to move to IPhone just because some dirty users wanted to... Well, yeah...

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  11. Re:Seems fitting by tripleevenfall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Moreover, why is Halliburton moving away from Blackberry to iOS supposed to raise any eyebrows? RIM is in a death spiral. This article could have been written about thousands of other companies.

    (Yes, I know that this is /. so there's necessarily evil afoot when android isn't chosen, but... )

  12. Check yo facts, foo. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mac OS X is FIPS 140-2 certified: http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/1401val2011.htm#1514

    iOS is working on FIPS certification (Review Pending stage for iPad, iPhone on IUT) right now: http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cmvp/documents/140-1/140InProcess.pdf

  13. Re:Physical keyboard? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Touchscreens are much harder to type on whilst driving a car

    Conveniently, this usability issue is addressed by Darwin.