The current direction of smartphone manufacturer BlackBerry means its products might not be a sustainable option for use in BYOD schemes. That's what Maurice Jenkins, director of information systems and telecommunications for Miami International Airport, told Computing.
Speaking at the recent SITA airline IT conference in Brussels, Jenkins revealed that while BlackBerry has been his device of choice for Miami International Airport staff, that might not be the case for much longer.
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"Most preferable to work with in the environment has always been BlackBerry because of the enterprise server and everything else," he said.
"But with the direction BlackBerry is taking, I'm not sure how sustainable it will be, but we'll see. So primarily it's BlackBerry, but the Android devices we do like and you see a lot more Apple deployments out there."
Jenkins has been a BlackBerry user for many years, but recently he bought a Samsung Galaxy S4.
"I've been a BlackBerry user for years, I could write you a book about my BlackBerry! But I'm getting used to this [Samsung Galaxy S4] now as a value-added tool. So for me, the tool process is just absolutely fantastic," he said, adding he'd highly recommend the device for the enterprise.
"There's more functionality coming out of it. I would encourage anyone to take a class in the utilisation of this tool, it's a great resource for being able to just manage your day and utilise the applications and the functions which come along with it."
BlackBerry hoped to close the gap between itself and smartphone rivals including Apple and Samsung with the launch of new devices running on its latest BB10 operating system. However, since being released earlier this year, sales of the BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 smartphones have been disappointing, with just 2.7 million sold worldwide.
