The U.S .Department of Defense (DoD) has granted approvals to two smartphone and tablet manufacturers, clearing the way for their latest devices to be sold to the Pentagon.
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) on Friday said it had approved Enterprise Service (BES) 10 on BlackBerry's Z10 and Q10 smartphones and PlayBook tablets, as well as Knox on Samsung's just-released Galaxy S4, to run on its internal networks. Knox is based on the Android operating system.
The DoD had previously restricted staff from using Android devices on internal networks due to security fears.
In total, the agency has 470,000 BlackBerry users, 41,000 Apple users and 8,700 Android users, but the latter two are mostly in test programs.The Pentagon is currently reviewing several mobile device types and operating systems, including Apple's iOS 6, and is expected to make an announcement on whether Apple products are sanctioned for use this month.
