The U.S. President’s phone situation is still somewhat up in the air – he’ll probably be keeping the BlackBerry, and is eyeballing the Sectera Edge for more sensitive communications, but some think he should stick to the one device.
Microsoft, however, has questioned the wisdom of the president relying on a device whose maker is based in Canada. “You would be sending your data outside the country,” says Randy Siegel, a Microsoft enterprise mobile strategist who works on federal government projects. “We wouldn’t want the casual musings or official communications of the most important person in the world being intercepted by others.”
Yeah, I bet Jim-Dog is down in the NOC server room right now snooping through the ones and zeroes to find out if Barack needs to buy milk on the way home from meeting with international delegates. It’s true that all BlackBerry e-mails get processed at the Waterloo, Ontario RIM headquarters for compression and delivery, but it’s really in one ear and out the other. Countless of the world’s biggest corporations have been using this setup for years with the utmost trust, and although Obama’s situation is the exception rather than the rule, there really isn’t anything to worry about when it comes to low-sensitivity e-mails.
[via WSJ]