Blackberries dumped by another US govt agency

The US National Transportation Safety Board or NTSB is the latest high-profile government agency to drop embattled mobile vendor Research in Motion's Blackberry devices.

NTSB intends to switch to iPhone 5s. The agency said in its justification document for the procurement the Blackberries had been "failing both at inopportune times and at an unacceptable rate".

The agency is tasked with investigating aeroplane accidents and has around 400 employees.

iPads are already in use at the NTSB which says "minimal additional software will be necessary to support the transition to the iPhone 5."

Verizon Wireless is the NTSB's supplier of choice for the iPhone 5s. The mobile carrier was the agency's Blackberry supplier too.

The NTSB is one in a string of government agencies in the US and around the world to give Blackberries the heave-ho in favour of iPhones and Android devices.

Apple iPhones were selected over Blackberries by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with over 25,000 employees in February this year. The same month also saw the US General Service Administration with 17,000 employees drop Blackberries and in August, the British government opened the door for iOS-based and Android devices to receive the security clearance required for agencies to switch over them.

In October this year, the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement service said that RIM "can no longer meet the mobile needs of the agency" and switched from Blackberries to iPhones for over 17,600 employes.

However, six Blackberry 7 devices received approval from the US Department of Defence in May this year and president Barack Obama is one of a million government Blackberry users in America.

The new Blackberry 10 platform was also certified as meeting the US Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 in November this year.

RIM also received a shot in the arm from analysts Jefferies & Co yesterday. Speaking to Reuters, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek believes that with increased carrier and marketing support the Blackberry 10 platform now "has a 20 to 30 per cent probability of success".