Pentagon has denied purchasing 80,000 new BlackBerry phones as interpreted by some media outlets, which saw BlackBerry stocks surge a couple of days back.
In a statement to The Verge, the Department of Defense has rubbished reports of the procurement by stating that “Absolutely no new orders have been placed for new BB devices.”
“The DISA press release put out Jan. 16 never alluded to any devices being purchased. The 80,000 BBs and 1,800 non-BB devices referenced in the release are legacy systems already in DoD inventories”, the statement read further.
All this started after DoD published a press release on January 16 announcing initial release of its unclassified mobility capability under which a new mobile network that will utilize unclassified devices such as tablets, and smartphones was launched within the agency.
DoD stated that the new network supports 100,000 deployed devices including “1,800 unclassified mobile devices including iPad 3 and 4, iPhone 4S and 5, Samsung 10.1 tablets and Samsung 3S, and Motorola RAZR” and 80,000 BB phones.
The statement “The program also supports 80,000 BlackBerry phones” within the press release was misread by major media outlets who interpreted that an order for 80,000 new BB devices was placed by the agency.
DoD’s clarification means that the agency is not a BlackBerry saviour in disguise and even if it were, an order 80,000 devices doesn’t actually save a company of BlackBerry’s size.
