Mashable: The U.S. Department of Defense plans to move beyond BlackBerry as its primary mobile device to a more "platform agnostic" policy that is open to Android and iOS devices.
A DoD rep told AppleInsider that this does not mean a full abandonment of BlackBerry's platform, but Apple and Android device-makers can sell their products to the Defense Department.
"The key takeaway is that it's a multi-vendor solution. We will have a DoD-wide device management system and a DoD-wide app storefront,” Lt. Col. Damien Pickart toldAppleInsider.
BlackBerry is currently the DoD standard, though it is not the only device deployed. Of the 600,000-plus mobile devices used in both standard operations and pilot programs, roughly 470,000 are BlackBerry devices, about 41,000 iOS devices, and around 80,000 devices run Android.
Pickart said the expansion is not part of a broader plan to establish a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) standard at the Department, at least not for now.
"It's not BYOD; it is the department migrating to a multi-vendor environment that is going to include more than BlackBerry currently," he said. "BYOD is a long-term objective, but we're just not there yet. The technology is there, but things like security, we're not quite there yet."
The DoD said it will open its networks to smartphones and tablets from Apple and Android device manufacturers beginning in February 2014.
Tablet-deployment issues, management strategies and BYOD will be among the key topics discussed at the upcoming Tablet Strategy conference in New York on April 30.
Image courtesy of Flickr, mindfrieze
