US DoD OKs Samsung, Blackberry For Defense Network, Approval for Apple Still Hangs

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) on Thursday has finally stamped its approval paving for the usage of Samsung Electronics Co. and Research in Motion Ltd. (Blackberry) devices in its defense network.

BlackBerry 10 smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets running BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 as well as Samsung's Android Knox-based mobile devices passed the DoD's security tests for eventual deployment for the employees.

"This is a significant step toward establishing a multi- vendor environment that supports a variety of state-of-the-art devices and operating systems," Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.

Approval for Apple's iOS 6 operating system still hangs, but Lieutenant Colonel Pickart said it is expected to be released early this month, hinting the DoD is currently evaluating several more mobile devices and operating systems.

However, the approval for BlackBerry's new mobile OS and devices "does not result in product orders" since the department had long been using the brand as its preferred mode of communication tool.

BlackBerry users at DoD were accounted at 470,000, Apple users at 41,000 and people using Android at 8,700.