RIM‘s going to have to trumpet its holiday success in England more loudly than ever if it hopes to drown out the sound of feet marching away from the BlackBerry encampment. Earlier this week, oilfield services titan Halliburton pulled the plug and moved thousands of smartphone users to the iPhones. Now, U.S. Federal Agency the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced that they’re done with BlackBerry, too.
NOAA CIO Joe Klimavicz oversees an information technology budget of around $600 million dollars, and he’s been asked to cut back wherever possible. His agency has a lot more equipment to spend money on than just smartphones and servers, what with all the atmospheric and oceanic monitoring and reporting it does.
Right now, there are about 3,000 BlackBerry devices in use at NOAA. Klimavicz didn’t specify a timetable for a complete transition to iOS (and interestingly he’s leaving the door open for Android devices in the future), saying only that they’ll be purchasing several to complement the iPads that are already in use. In June, NOAA will be cutting the cord on RIM’s server services.
The move to iOS is actually the second step in NOAA’s IT transformation. According to Klimavicz, the move away from BlackBerry was made possible when the agency completed its transition to Google Apps.
When reached for comment, RIM made sure to mention that it’s still working very closely with “more than one million government customers” in the United States. But just as other companies will look at the Halliburton move with raised eyebrows, so too will other American agencies and offices, and wonder if NOAA’s cost-cutting move could help improve their own situations.
More at The Globe and Mail
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