United States Immigration and Customers Enforcement agency drops BlackBerrys for iPhones
Over the past three years, RIM has seen a steady decline in mind and market share, not to mention its rapid decrease of revenue each quarter. Unfortunately, that just keeps happening for RIM – with the latest group of people to give the BlackBerry up being the United States Immigration and Customers Enforcement agency.
The agency used BlackBerry devices exclusively eight years, although that is obviously over. A document that the agency published today said that RIM’s mobile phones “can no longer meet the mobile technology needs of the agency.” Because of this, it is planning to purchase iPhones for more than 17,600 of its employees – which adds up to the amount of $2.1 million.
For most large companies and organizations, $2.1 million is not a hefty sum of money – even for RIM. But what really hurts is the fact that the agency published a document detailing its move from BlackBerry OS to iOS.
RIM’S Vice President of Government Solutions Paul Lucier also expressed the disappointment that all of RIM is certainly feeling at this point:
“Of course, we are disappointed by this decision. I’m confident that BlackBerry is, and will continue to be, the best solution for government agencies. We are working hard to make our new mobile computing platform, BlackBerry 10, meet the future needs of government customers.”
It’s very RIM-esque to play the BlackBerry 10 card; it’s what the company has been doing for the past year amidst numerous delays of the operating system. I hope, for RIM’S sake, that there will be no more delays – the company surely can’t take much more of the constant loss of customers and revenue.
[Reuters via CNET]
