Ford Motor Company will replace BlackBerry smartphones with iPhones for about 3,300 workers by the end of this year, Sara Tatchio, a Ford spokeswoman, said today in an interview with Bloomberg. About 6,000 more employees will receive iPhones over the next two years, replacing flip phones, she said.
The switch will be made before the end of this year, and Ford is looking to hire a mobile technology analyst to focus “on the global deployment of corporate iPhones.†Other 6,000 Ford employees will receive new iPhones over the next couple of years, though these will replace “flip phonesâ€Â, not BlackBerrys.
A Ford spokesperson stated:
“We are going to get everyone on iPhones. It meets the overall needs of the employees because it is able to serve both our business needs in a secure way, and the needs we have in our personal lives with a single device.”
The news comes not long after Apple and IBM announced a partnership to put new enterprise apps on iPhones and iPads.
Bloomberg quotes a BlackBerry spokesman, who reportedly declared:
“While we can’t comment on this customer, we understand that there is diversity and choice in the market. Enterprises should think twice about relying on any solution built on the foundation of a consumer technology that lacks the proven security benefits that BlackBerry has always delivered.”
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