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Australian Transport Safety Bureau stays loyal to BlackBerry

National transport safety investigator takes opportunity to stick on the BlackBerry path.
Written by Chris Duckett, Contributor

Faced with an aging BlackBerry fleet, and an offer from the Canadian handset maker to upgrade without licencing costs, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has moved from a mixed world of BlackBerry OS 7 or lower, to one that utilises the latest that the company formerly known as RIM has to offer.

The ATSB will be rolling out BlackBerry's Z10 and Z30 smartphones, as well as moving across the BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10.

Chris Fitzpatrick, ATSB manager of ICT and business services, told ZDNet that the new arrangement was a continuation of the bureau's existing five year relationship with BlackBerry, and that its staff were extremely happy to move into the new century after years on older devices.

ATSB chief commissioner, Martin Dolan, said in a statement that the new mobile infrastructure would allow for live video streaming from investigation sites in the future, as well as increasing the range of devices that could be used in the organisation.

"We chose BlackBerry 10 for its trusted security, ease of migration and cost-effectiveness, which has overall helped the ATSB realise significant savings," Dolan said. "BlackBerry's devices and management platform are helping to make investigative processes timelier and more comprehensive, while finding cost efficiencies through seamless migration and deployment"

The BlackBerry Z30 is available in Australia from today, and comes at the time when the company is in the middle of a six-week window where Fairfax Financial, after having an offer to buy the company for US$4.7 billion accepted, is conducting due diligence.

Inside that window, BlackBerry can accept a better offer, should one appear.

The Canadian phone maker shed 4,500 jobs from its workforce in September, and recorded a loss of US$965 million for its second quarter.

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