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NTSB Dumps BlackBerry In Favor of iPhone 5

Posted by Soulskill on from the kicking-them-when-they're-down dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) plans on replacing its existing stock of BlackBerry devices with Apple's iPhone 5. Research In Motion's BlackBerry smartphones, the government entity wrote in a Nov. 13 notice of intent, 'have been failing both at inopportune times and at an unacceptable rate.' The NTSB's use of iPads means it has the operational support for iOS; consequently, the decision was made to go with Apple. 'The iPhone 5 has been determined to be the only device that meets the dual requirement of availability from the existing wireless vendor and is currently supportable by existing staff resources,' the notice added. RIM is fighting to retain the government and enterprise contracts that originally made it such a mobile powerhouse. If agencies and boards such as the NTSB begin to embrace alternative platforms, however, that could critically weaken RIM's business model just as the company attempts a comeback behind the upcoming BlackBerry 10 platform."

3 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Not ruggedized. by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm surprised the NTSB wanted something as fragile as an iPhone. I would have expected them to go for something that had a ruggedized, waterproof model in the product family.

    Rugged smartphones have been around for a while, but in 2012, they got bigger screens and current electronics. The Samsung Galaxy Rugby Pro, the Honeywell Dolphin 70e, the rather bulky Caterpillar B10 Smartphone, and the thin Nautiz X1 all meet basic military ruggedization standards while running reasonably current Android versions.

  2. I would have thought that the Transportaion Safety by mark_reh · · Score: 5, Funny

    Board might want/need to have phones with a reliable mapping application.

  3. Re:Forgot their customers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As an IT administratator all I can say is your attitude is poor. Why does the average worker need access to facebook and twitter? they are paid to work not to slack of tweeting and updating profiles.

    Workers seem to foget that a top priority of any IT department is to prevent unauthorised access or leaking of corporate data and not make the end use happy by giving them shinny toy X or Y, though it is nice to get some well manged and supportable hardware to the users.

    Lastly, Apple probably have one of the better out of the box solutions to manage their smart phones or "cripple them'' as you like to call it.