Blow to Blackberry as US government support staff switch to Apple and Android

James Fisher from Booz Allen commented to the Drum, "Only a few thousand of our senior staff are issued company phones, and for some time they have had a choice of BB, IPhone or Android. Only a subset of those few thousand had BB to begin with, and they will have to change in the coming months.

"The vast majority of our staff are not issued phones, but can get work email on their personal phones. Those people also have BB, Android or iPhone, and only the BB users will no longer have work email access. "

The decision is a big blow to Canadian-based Blackberry maker Research in Motion. Its "sterling reputation for security had helped shore up BlackBerry loyalty in government circles," said Bloomberg, as sales fell elsewhere.

However customers in the US are said to have got tired of waiting for the twice-delayed BlackBerry 10 phones due out in early 2013 .

Other smaller government agencies are also said to be looking at BlackBerry alternatives, including The General Services Administration which buys $70 billion worth of products and services for other federal agencies each year.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is to begin replacing the BlackBerrys it issues with iPhones .

RIM continues to work closely with more than a million government customers in North America alone, a company spokeswoman told Bloomberg, and the BlackBerry is still a White House fixture.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly implied that all 25,000 Booz Allen staff were getting iPhones or Android phones. We apologise for the error.