Irish government drops Blackberry in favor of iPads

The other day we reported that the US Immigrations had decided to pilot run RIM’s Blackberry 10 program, although this was two months after they had dropped RIM and gone with the iPhone. Now it looks like the Irish government is following suit in which the Teachta Dála’s in the lower house of the Oireachtas will be dropping Blackberrys in favor of the iPad. So what’s the reason behind this drop? Is it because the iPad is more popular, or they no longer believe in the capabilities of Blackberry? Actually it has more to do with  cost, and according to the SiliconRepublic:

One of the reasons Blackberry support is being dropped is the Oireachtas ICT unit no longer wishes to pay to keep a BlackBerry Enterprise Server running when no such server is required for Android or iPhone devices.

“The provision of support for BlackBerrys carries the additional cost of two separate servers, power, cooling, administration and annual support,” the spokesperson explained.

The government will be buying the iPads wholesale, and in a move to help save more money, the iPads will not be distributed freely, but rather members who wish to own one can buy it from the government with their own money. This isn’t the first we’ve heard of governments dropping RIM’s Blackberry devices in favor of the competition, but maybe they might sing a different tune when Blackberry 10 is launched.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Tablets
Tags: BlackBerry, iPad