BlackBerry 10 passes US defence department tests

BlackBerry has secured access to a critical market – the US military – for its new operating system and handsets and version 10 of its Enterprise Service software. Sighs of relief at the news may well be rattling the windows at BlackBerry's headquarters, because the company has staked its future on secure messaging. Winning …

[Anonymous Coward]

Imperative

It was something that BlackBerry had to achieve, and they've done it. Not that surprising, this is the sort of endorsement they designed BB10 for.

Let's see what the market twisting analysts with vested interests make of that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Imperative

Will make no difference to the outcome of a business run by a man who hears voices is his head.

Sell your shares as quickly as you can...

[TheVogon]

Re: Imperative

+1

Microsoft already submitted Windows Phone for the same certification....Blackberry are dying.

[bazza]

Re: Imperative

Submitted not equal to passed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Imperative

You don't submit something unless you feel you meet the requirements. Otherwise you're wasting your time, it takes a lot of time and effort to go through government processes.

[TheVogon]

Re: Imperative

Blackberry had already had previous handsets certified so it is faster to get a new version certified than starting from scratch like Microsoft.

The reality is that from having a near monopoly, Blackberry now have to share this space with both Android and Windows Phone....This announcement is just bubbles from the sinking ship....

[Paul Renault]

Re: Imperative

"Submitted..for the same certification"?

Is that like Ken Brockman's 'Emmy-submitted' Six O'Clock News?

[bazza]

interesting list

The UC APL list is quite interesting. There's 4 Androids, only one of which is Android 4. There's a couple of Apples, but only iOS 5. BlackBerry's entries are BB6 and BB7, and any device that runs it. And now BlackBerry have BB10 on there too (or will do as soon as anyone updates the website).

So of all the vendors only BlackBerry have their latest products and software approved. Not a bad position to be in.

[James 51]

If the playbook OS is changed soon will it have to be recertified?

[bazza]

Probably not. It's all BlackBerry hardware, and the OS (BB10) has already been approved. Any additional examination is likely to be quite minor and incremental.

Apple, MS and BlackBerry are in a reasonably good place for maintaining an active listing on this list. MS has a hardware spec that goes along with WP8, so as long as the handset manufacturers stay within that (ie don't add a port labelled Debug Here And Slurp All The Data, or something) then it should be relatively easy to keep WP8 approved (assuming . Apple and BlackBerry control their hardware anyway and so are in a good place.

However Android is in a bad place; each handset manufacturer is effectively its own OS provider, Google don't provide them with pre built binaries. Samsung might get Android version X.Y.Z certified on their hardware, but that probably won't read across to a HTC handset running the 'same' version.

[I think so I am?]

Did it pass in the UK?

See title!

[bazza]

Re: Did it pass in the UK?

Apparently not yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good

Does this mean my bloody shares might go up for the first time since I bought the feckers?

[TheVogon]

Re: Good

Unlikely, Blackberry market share is still dropping, and Microsoft are currently outselling them nearly 6:1 in the US with Windows Phone....

[A Man From Bras]

For a completely different spin on this...

...see this story on the beeb:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22395602

Which suggests that, far from being a success story, this is desperate spin by BlackBerry, who in reality are losing market share in this sector.