No, Canada? Microsoft questions Obama's choice of BlackBerry |
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No, Canada? Microsoft questions Obama's choice of BlackBerry
First we had the dustup over President Obama's Zune. Then the reports of Obama's team struggling to adjust to Microsoft software in the White House. Now Microsoft has surfaced in another debate about Obama's technology use -- the long-running BlackBerry controversy.
And the viewpoint expressed by a Microsoft strategist isn't going to set well with the company's neighbors to the north.
The White House said yesterday that the new president will get to keep his BlackBerry, with security enhancements and other precautions designed to protect the privacy of communications among his inner circle. But a Microsoft enterprise mobile strategist tells the Wall Street Journal that it's not wise for the new U.S. administration to rely on technology from a foreign country.
That would be Canadian-based Research in Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry device and data network.
“You would be sending your data outside the country,” the WSJ quotes Microsoft's Randy Siegel as saying. “We wouldn’t want the casual musings or official communications of the most important person in the world being intercepted by others.”
Siegel advocates a device approved by the National Security Agency, such as the Sectera Edge, which runs on Microsoft's Windows CE software. I've asked Research in Motion if it wants to respond to the assertion, and I'll update this post depending on what I hear back.
(Via Silicon Alley Insider)
About Todd Bishop
Todd Bishop is co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash. He has covered Microsoft and the technology industry for more than five years, most recently as a daily newspaper reporter and blogger based in Seattle.
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