The United States Defense Department is gearing up to maintain a backup plan in a scenario where BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) bids adieu, says a report from Arstechnica. BlackBerry is going through tough times, and the company is trapped in losses with seemingly no way out. The Canadian smartphone maker failed to strike a sell-off deal with FairFax Financials.
Defense department and BlackBerry
BlackBerry has served the United States government for a long time, and still over 470,000 of its smartphones are being used by various government officials. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Android based rivals managed to enter the government zone, but could not strike a deal with the Defense department.
Both BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) and the Defense Department of the United States continued their bond even when BlackBerry was openly looking for strategic alternatives. The Pentagon upgraded the old BlackBerry OS with the new BlackBerry 10, and took necessary steps to run BlackBerry phones on its network. Also, the government wing planned to buy a consignment of tens of thousands of phones, but since then things have changed at BlackBerry, and more recently the company ousted its CEO when the buyout failed.
Defense Department’s multi-vendor strategy
The Defense Department is, however, holding tight on BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) and relies on the company, but it is preparing a contingency plan in case the phone maker takes any sudden actions. According to an official at the Pentagon, the Department is not dependent on any single mobile company.
“This multi-vendor, device-agnostic approach minimizes the impact of [a] single vendor to our current operations,” the official said.
By the year 2016, the Defense Department is looking forward to approving 300,000 devices to be used by the personnel on its network mobile device management system, which tracks smartphones and tablets to keep computer systems error and risk free.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickart said that the multi-vendor device strategy adopted by the Pentagon will insulate it against the impact of a single vendor having problems. The official also said that the 2012 strategy adopted by the Defense Department, which called for a shift from PCs to smartphones, did not favor any particular mobile maker. The Pentagon will depend on different vendors as per the strategy, adding that the mobile security management system is in an early stage of development, and will be subjected to limited pilot and reach “initial operating capacity” by December 31st.
