The Pentagon really never left BlackBerry but they started using other platforms such as iOS and Android, today the National Journal is reporting that all employees must revert back to BlackBerry legacy devices as their Android and iPhone devices will simply become “useless”
Why the move back to BlackBerry? Security. Officials on Monday night acknowledged BlackBerry will retain its position in the department’s mobile computing arsenal for now.
“DISA will support BlackBerry devices with the existing [Blackberry Enterprise Server]. During the transition period, DISA is not provisioning new iOS/Android users on the existing server,” Pentagon spokesman Damien Pickart said in an email. “We are delaying provisioning of those devices until the [mobile device management] environment is ready in Jan 2014. We will provision new devices as rapidly as possible starting in January 2014.”
The aim is to hook up 100,000 military personnel and their government-furnished Apple, Samsung, BlackBerry and other consumer devices to the security service by September 2014.
According to DISA approval documents, only BlackBerry phones and Playbook tablets have an “authority to operate,” or ATO, on Defense networks — not Android, Apple or any other device lines.
Source: National Journal