BlackBerry is pleased to announce that the US Defense Information System Agency (DISA) has awarded them with the “Authority To Operate” (ATO) where the BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 smartphones are concerned, alongside BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, so you should be able to see both smartphones burn up the lines over at the Department of Defense in due time. These are the first of a new generation of smartphones that were awarded the authority to operate under a new batch of IT guidelines.
Thanks to the ATO, DISA will now work on developing the infrastructure so that it can support BlackBerry 10 smartphones. DISA is tipped to deliver enough capacity for it to support a whopping 10,000 BlackBerry 10 smartphones by the time fall arrives, and to touch the 30,000 mark by the end of this year on DoD networks, depending on how much funding they receive in the first place. While missing an ATO would not mean total prohibition of operation on DoD networks, it does limit the access the devices have to classified services, and we all know how precious information can be. This is a PR coup for BlackBerry, but chances are it will not do too much for the company in the long run when the global market is so much larger than just 30,000 BlackBerry smartphones. [Press Release]
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