Washington: US President Barack Obama is considering ditching his BlackBerry for a rival mobile phone brand, in what would be a symbolic blow to the struggling Canadian handset maker.
The White House Communications Agency (WHCA), which provides communications systems for the President and the secret service, is considering switching from the keyboard-based device that the US president has used since he was a senator to a touchscreen handset. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, products by Samsung and LG are being considered.
For BlackBerry, the incursion of Samsung or LG into the White House would be the final fall from grace. The company has plummeted from its once-essential position among government and business users because of its encrypted email system to become a lossmaking also-ran. Last November it had to raise $1bn in debt financing after an attempt to engineer a sale failed and Thorsten Heins, its chief executive, was jettisoned in favour of industry veteran John Chen.
The company is due to announce its fourth-quarter earnings next Friday, having recorded net losses of $5.5bn over the previous three quarters on revenues of $5.8bn. For Samsung or LG, a switch would be a huge publicity coup. Samsung is the world’s largest smartphone manufacturers. Although Obama uses an Apple iPad for some activities, there is no indication that the WHCA is considering an iPhone for his use.
If Obama were to give up his BlackBerry, he would be following millions of Americans who have fallen out of love with what was once the most popular smartphone in the US. In September 2010, there were 21 million BlackBerry owners in the US — but by January this year, that had fallen to fewer than 5 million, according to research company ComScore.
Obama has been an affirmed BlackBerry user for at least a decade but, after becoming president in 2008, he had to give it up briefly for a secure Sectera Edge phone specially created by the National Security Agency. But that was quickly replaced by a customised BlackBerry with software called SecureVoice, developed in conjunction with the National Security Agency.
BlackBerry said that for more than a decade, it had been securing the US government’s mobile communications. “Only BlackBerry is designed to meet the high-security needs of US and allied government agencies,” the company said.
A big concern for the US security agencies would be to make any phone that the first family used completely secure against any form of hacking.
The Guardian
