The US Defense Department has approved Blackberry 10's smartphones, running on the latest operating system, for its secure networks.
In a press release Thursday, Blackberry announced the approval for its Blackberry Z10, Q10 and Playbook devices to be used in the Department of Defense networks. The news comes as a reprieve to the Canadian mobile company in many ways, which has been facing a tough competition from Samsung and Apple devices.
Blackberry has scored a point against the much in demand competitors; Apple and Samsung.
Although the Z10 sales started off on rocky grounds, in March the company said it had sold 1 million Blackberry 10 units in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2013.
Scott Totzke, SVP, BlackBerry Security said in the press release that choosing its products would be a safe option for the U.S government customers because of its "rich, highly responsive mobile computing experience, along with BlackBerry's proven and validated security model - a combination that's unmatched in the industry."
"This approval will enable DoD customers to connect their BlackBerry Z10 or BlackBerry Q10 smartphones to DoD networks and securely access assets from work, while enjoying the wealth of consumer-oriented functionality that BlackBerry 10 brings to market," he said in the statement.
In February this year, the Defense Department had announced the dropping of its exclusive contract with Blackberry and opening the mobile communication network to other device makers such as Apple and Samsung, provided they met the department's classified security guidelines, said a report by CNN.
The report said that more than 600,000 mobile devices were used by the department and Blackberry owned the highest number at 470,000. It said that 41,000 were Apple products and 8,700 were Google's Android devices. The department said it would be handling as many as 8 million devices in the course of time.
Blackberry has won several U.S. government agency contracts in the past by meeting all the high security requirements. But things seem to be changing around as DoD has opened up to test other device-making companies to get a wider choice.
Making its way through the DISA's Unified Communications Approved Product List (UC APL) maintained by the Defense Information Systems Agency, Blackberry can add a star to its badge, which can be used as an advantage to sell its secure messaging services elsewhere.
