Is BlackBerry More Secure Than Android? Ask Obama and the US Military.

• Rob Jackson
• 13 years ago

Despite the growth of Android and iOS, corporate types continue to clutch their BlackBerry’s on Wall Street and elsewhere, largely pointing to security as the main reason they won’t give up on RIM. But how long until that becomes a distant memory? Maybe not long if the National Security Agency, US Army, and other American military branches have anything to say about it.

Word out of Government Computer News says Google, George Mason, and the NSA have teamed up to produce a hardened kernel of Android 3.0 with, “a government plan to create a secure national wireless network for first responders.” According to CGN, the hardened kernel is in the final stages of certification.

President Obama is a notorious Blackberry user, but check out this quote on the reason to go with Android rather than Blackberry in this snippet pulled directly from the article:

In addition to the Army’s plans to provide troops with smart phones, the Obama administration was attracted to the technology to support two of its initiatives. One is an effort by the White House Communications Office to move the executive branch from BlackBerry devices to Android-based phones. The reason is because Android devices with the new kernel can be secured at a higher clearance level than BlackBerry devices, McCarthy said.

You could argue that the type of security the government require and the kind corporations need are totally different, but regardless, I think it says a lot about the widening gap between Android, iOS, and the soon to be distant competitors including RIM.

What do you think about the difference between security – whether for government or business purposes – between Android and Blackberry?