Earlier this week, it was revealed that energy giant Haliburton is was going to begin a transition that will replace all corporate BlackBerry devices with iPhones.
RIM got more bad news today in the form of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announcing that the federal agency will also be dropping the BlackBerry platform in favor of the iPhone.
The news came via a memo from the agency’s CIO Joseph Klimavicz dated February 3. The memo, obtained by Jim Dalrymple of The Loop indicates that BlackBerry support will extend only until May 12 of this year. After which, the agency will replace BlackBerry handsets with iPhones running iOS 5 or later. The memo noted the NOAA will also include support for the iPad 2.
This move comes after NOAA’s decision to switch to Google Apps for email and calendaring infrastructure. That decision was part of the Obama administration’s efforts to pursue a “cloud first” approach.
With this transition, NOAA becomes part of a trend in the U.S. federal government to move from BlackBerry to iOS devices. It also comes after the U.S. CIO Steven VanRoekel discussed efforts to embrace mobile technology across federal agencies at CES last month calling the effor a pledge to “make this year the year of mobile.”
