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Senate Staffers Will No Longer Be Issued BlackBerry Devices (cnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the end-of-an-era dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Senate staffers will no longer be issued BlackBerry devices. According to Politico, a note sent to staffers on Wednesday said the Senate had no choice after BlackBerry decided to discontinue devices running its own BlackBerry 10 software. "Once we have exhausted our current in-house stock, new device procurements will be limited, while supplies last, to warranty exchanges only," reads the Sergeant at Arms note. The 600 BlackBerry smartphones currently in the Senate's possession will be supported for the "foreseeable future." The news comes after a report that President Obama has ditched his BlackBerry handset in favor of a "hardened" version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 that is supported by the Defense Information Systems Agency. It also follows a report that the Canadian smartphone maker lost $670 million in the first quarter of its 2017 financial year. During BlackBerry's first quarter, the company sold roughly 500,000 devices at an average price of $290 each. They will apparently need to sell about three million phones at an average of $300 each to break even.

29 comments

  1. Galaxy S4 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They are really keeping current here.. .

    1. Re:Galaxy S4 by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      It takes the 3 letter agencies some time to vet the procurement and harden the ROM.

      Wikipedia cites a list of approved devices for Samsung Knox from 2014 which lists the S5 too. Presumably others will be added over time.

      Plus, the US taxpayer saves money if federal officials buy up existing stocks on ebay rather than buy the flagship S7.

    2. Re:Galaxy S4 by GolfBoy · · Score: 1

      I'm sure the government is somehow contriving to pay more for an S4 than I would pay for an S7.

  2. Time for Apple.... by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 1

    ...to buy them cheap for their IP...and to keep others from doing the same thing.

    1. Re:Time for Apple.... by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      will they offer custom roms for the us gov?

    2. Re:Time for Apple.... by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      What IP? They make crappy phones. Amazingly hundreds of other manufacturers make phones without using Blackberrys "IP".

    3. Re:Time for Apple.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      their phones are actually really good, compared to all the shiny shit out there.

      I bet you just never had nor used one. For example, Q10 is absolutely awesome.
      Let me guess, you are one of those social media addicted infantile who need constant distraction, idiotic games and what not to have a "useful phone". Give yourself a selfy (look it up, it used to mean something else)

    4. Re:Time for Apple.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They tried to sell themselves a few years back, when they were worth $5 billion, the only bid was $4 billion from one of their biggest stockholders... which they turned down.

  3. Blackberry for iPhone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The agency I work for, part of the Legislative branch, swapped out our Blackberries for iPhone's with Good Technology.

    1. Re:Blackberry for iPhone by ControlsGeek · · Score: 1

      Blackberry now owns Good Technology.

  4. Based on incorrect information by ControlsGeek · · Score: 3, Informative

    As always with Blackberry stories this news is based on incorrect information. According to Crackberry the Senate was informed that the Blackberry Classic phone, which does run BBOS10 is being discontinued not all phones running the BBOS10 operating system. Blackberry is continuing to update the operating system with a new version 3.3 in the final release now.

    http://crackberry.com/us-senat...

    1. Re:Based on incorrect information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "discontinue devices running its own BlackBerry 10 software" was the stupidest move ever by BB.
      I am going to miss BB when my good old Blackberry Q10 breaks down. :(

    2. Re:Based on incorrect information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "discontinue devices running its own BlackBerry 10 software" was the stupidest move ever by BB.
      I am going to miss BB when my good old Blackberry Q10 breaks down. :(

      You can blame corporare BYOD policy for the decline of BlackBerry's own operating system, currently BBOS 10. To be fair though the new BlackBerry Priv running BlackBerry Android is a decent smartphone. With Chairman Chen willingly turning over data to "law enforcement" no BlackBerry is truly secure any more.

    3. Re:Based on incorrect information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      editors actually do research? this is slashdot.

    4. Re: Based on incorrect information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With Chairman Chen willingly turning over data to "law enforcement" no BlackBerry is truly secure any more.

      That really is the problem. All phones are bad security risks in one way or another but enthusiastically cooperating with cops and spy agencies is an awesome way to get me to not want your product. I can't stand Apple and even they went up a few notches in the respect department with me lately. Blackberry had it made in the security department, at least perception wise, and they blew it horribly.

    5. Re: Based on incorrect information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its been this way since the Obama regime change.

      Nokia and BlackBerry were told to get on board with American-made smartphone operating systems. It was corporate genocide.

    6. Re:Based on incorrect information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can blame corporare BYOD policy for the decline of BlackBerry's own operating system

      That is one of the most braindead arguments I've read for ages.

      Engage both braincells for a second and think .. if BlackBerrys were so good then people would be buying them, then when work allows BYOD they'd still be shitloads of Blackberrys in the workplace. Except there aren't..

      The decline of BlackBerry is soley down to themselves. They sat on their laurels and watched their dominance in the market evaporate by doing absolutely nothing. Now it's pointless, too little,far too late.

    7. Re: Based on incorrect information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey moron, feel free to also use brain cells.

      Many people who had 3 year old locked down corporate phones didn't know about BB10 phones or even newer BB7 phones and saw iPhones advertised running all kinds of apps.

      IPhones were considered media consumption devices and Blackberry's productive workhorses.

      So many people had different experiences running locked down corporate phone and personal iPhone with email.

      A good portion of blame is on BlackBerry marketing (lack thereof and piss poor when they did).

      Now fuck off.

  5. I think Blackberry should have stayed the course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think Blackberry could have stayed around as a niche company, focused on security, reliability, and remote management. It would have a market share 1/3-1/8 of its former size, but it would have a small team, making bug fixes to Blackberry OS. The general purpose, app friendly, low security device market is larger, but Blackberry should have kept on being Blackberry.

  6. Re: I think Blackberry should have stayed the cour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a priv and love it. The the keyboard works great and it is sensitive so you can use it to scroll. Plus my messages are generally what I want to type. Blackberry did well with this android phone. It's just too bad nobody else has one.

  7. Poor example... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That the American president doesn't use American products.

  8. $900mm in expenses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sheesh. Let it die.

  9. BlackBerry don't want to sell you a BB10 device by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BlackBerry make more money selling a licence to manage an iPhone or Android than selling you their own device and the cheaper licence. In Australia, you can't buy a BB device unless you have an enterprise relationship with a single telco, the #2 in market. I'm aware of a number of customers BEGGING for BB stock over the past 9 months and they have been unable to get a single unit.

    This (people changing to iPhone or Android) is BlackBerrys strategy, not a disaster for them. It's a shame though as the BB experience still trumps the alternatives for those who rely on their smartphone for serious email use.

  10. Re: I think Blackberry should have stayed the cour by jaymemaurice · · Score: 1

    I'm sure it's great but how long do you expect it to get updates?

    Did you own a playbook? It was great too. If I lost it I wouldn't even have to worry about my email leaking out because everything was on my tethered phone. It had flash and great multi-tasking. It COULD have run android apps similar to os 10.3 but Blackberry abandoned it. It's now a doorstop.

    I liked my z10 and z30 also... it ran most android apps quite well. My z30 sucked when hooked up to bes because my it team didn't update bes and you couldn't copy and past from work space (email) into personal space (phone dialer) and occasionally it would crash the entire android run-time and all running apps after it ran out of memory. Recently BlackBerry has given up working with Facebook and turned off the native Facebook app pushing an update to remove the native app, the ability to upload photos and synchronize address books.

    I was a loyal blackberry fan but I've been burned too many times. I will not own another blackberry product without an unlock-able boot loader. Especially not while the CEO states the company will get out of the phone business if they can't make money from it - Funny BlackBerry’s John Chen tops the list of Canadian top 100 earning CEOs at $89 million as he drives the company into the ground

    --
    120 characters ought to be enough for anyone