German Government Orders BlackBerry Z10 And Samsung Smartphones

BlackBerry has received a boost in its efforts to convince enterprise customer of the benefits of its BlackBerry 10 platform after the German government entered into an agreement to purchase 5,000 BlackBerry Z10 smartphones.

The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has placed an order with German firm Secusmart, who will also provide its own secure SD cards for accessing encrypted data, our sister publication ZDNet.de reports.

Secusuite for BlackBerry 10 promises government users a positive smartphone experience without compromising sensitive data.

BlackBerry 10 government use

BlackBerry is not the only manufacturer to supply the German government, which has also signed a deal with Deutsche Telekom for 5,000 Samsung Galaxy S III and S II smartphones. The order signifies Samsung’s growing interest in the enterprise market after last week announcing its own Android security platform, Samsung Knox, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

BlackBerry has issued a range of incentives as part of an effort to retain and attract business and government customers. Its smartphones have long been favoured by US government agencies as they meet their strict security requirements, but this advantage has been eroded by rival platforms who have improves security standards, while BlackBerrys have become increasingly undesirable.

A number of departments have invited bids from rival manufacturers, but the positive reception that has greeted the BlackBerry Z10 and the BlackBerry 10 operating system has encouraged some to give the Canadian firm another chance.

The first update to BlackBerry 10 will be rolled out over the next few weeks and features a raft of new improvements and fixes.

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