US Defense Department confirms plans to roll out 100,000+ iOS and Android Devices by next year
As discovered by 9to5mac, reports dated from back in October for the U.S. Department of Defense indicate a preperation to approve a large number of iOS and Android devices for use on government networks. Those reports were followed up with earlier this month with news that CACI International Inc was ‘modifying’ thousands of iPads for use in U.S. government agencies. The Pentagon went on to further confirm plans to open its networks to 100,000 new devices from Apple and Google by this month next year.
The exact quote being,
“The Pentagon said it wants employees to have the flexibility to use commercial products on classified and unclassified networks. It plans to create a military mobile applications store and hire a contractor to build a system that may eventually handle as many as 8 million devices.”
The move comes largely in part due to iPad’s and other iOS devices becoming more adopted by government agencies which formerly were filled by Blackberry,Linux, and others. The plans revealed in October indicated that up to 8 million devices are to be deployed partially made up of iOS devices. As far as managing the devices and the App Store, the Department of Defense has plans to select one or more companies this summer to develop the necessary software.
“The Defense Information Systems Agency plans to select a company or group of firms by early summer to develop the architecture to manage mobile devices and distribute software applications, according to John Hickey, mobility program manager at the agency.”