Blackberry Dropped by NTSB

At this point, one has to wonder when exactly Canadian smartphone maker Research in Motion (RIM) is going to admit it’s time to give up the ghost. The company has had its shares of ups and downs over 2012. In its latest setback, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has dumped the Blackberry in favor of Apple’s iPhone. The latest blow comes just days after the company looked like it was beginning a recovery with the announcement that the company had just received an analyst upgrade.

The NTSB pointed to a wide range of reliability issues concerning the Blackberry as the reason for the departure from the phone that used to be the must have device for the higher ups at all government agencies and executive boardrooms. The NTSB says that the Blackberry would fail at inopportune times and at a rate that was simply unacceptable. The agency added that they required “effective, reliable and stable communication capabilities to carry-out its primary investigative mission and to ensure employee safety in remote locations.”


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This is just the latest government agency that has left RIM twisting in the wind and seems to hint that even more agencies will be defecting before long. RIM, for its part is still hoping that the release of the Blackberry 10 operating system early in 2013 will be the thing that finally gets the company on the right track for good. The company simply cannot withstand another year or two of a “one step forward, two steps back” approach to their business.

RIM knows that it will take a little while for BB10 to really be a competitor to Android or the iOS operating systems, but they can set their sights on Microsoft’s mobile operating system as a target. If BB10 can make a move, or overtake Windows 8 phones, then the company could find itself getting a whole different set of news tidbits this time next year.