Boeing, BlackBerry team up to make spy smartphone

Boeing, BlackBerry team up to make spy smartphone

PanARMENIAN.Net - Boeing Co. is teaming up with BlackBerry Ltd. on a secretive, self-destructing smartphone developed for use by U.S. defense and homeland security employees and contractors, Bloomberg reported.

The partnership showcases a push by Boeing, the second-largest U.S. defense contractor, into software development as sales slow for its military hardware amid Pentagon budget cuts. BlackBerry gains a new way to hold on to its government base as commercial sales decline.

“We’re pleased to announce that Boeing is collaborating with BlackBerry to provide a secure mobile solution for Android devices utilizing our BES12 platform,” John Chen, chairman and chief executive officer of Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry, said during an earnings call today. “That by the way is all they allow me to say.”

The Chicago-based aerospace company has been testing its secure smartphone, known as the Boeing Black, with BlackBerry’s main business enterprise server product, known as BES, which provides software that allows large corporations and government departments to keep track of their employees’ devices. The server is compatible with Android and iPhone handsets.

The companies are “pursuing a number of opportunities” that would pair the Boeing device with BlackBerry’s server, Andy Lee, a Boeing spokesman, said, according to Bloomberg.

“Boeing has decades of experience providing defense and security customers with secure communications,” Lee said. “We are working with BlackBerry to help them ensure the BES12 operating system is compatible with, and optimized for use by, the ultra-secure mobile devices favored by the defense and security community.”

Boeing has released few details about the inner-workings of the phone, which it says in a brochure “was designed with security and modularity in mind.”

The Boeing Black is outfitted with two SIM cards instead of the one that’s standard on other mobile phones, so users can switch between government and commercial networks, according to a product description on the aerospace company’s website. There’s also a “modular expansion port,” which allows users to connect to satellites or expand the phone’s power capacity.

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