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When it looked like the courts might block Research In Motion's (RIM) access to the American market, there were rumblings that congress might do something to protect its favorite wireless device. This is just one example of how popular RIM's smartphones are in the U.S. federal government.

To further its products along in government circles, RIM is partnering with consultant SRA to provide services (wireless consulting, security planning, implementation, application development, and integration) to federal clients wanting to roll out BlackBerry voice, e-mail, and back-end data access communications.

RIM VP of Enterprise Business David Werezak said "SRA's consulting, integration, implementation and development services can benefit government clients that want to leverage the extensibility of the BlackBerry wireless platform with tailored solutions that go beyond wireless e-mail."

The companies have already implemented over 4,000 BlackBerry handhelds at the National Institutes of Health, so its personnel and researchers can receive and respond to time-sensitive messages and alerts. SRA helped the agency with integration planning and system implementation, and is currently providing administrator and end-user training.

BlackBerry, Government Certified

Back in the spring of 2003, the BlackBerry platform received Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) approval for operation on all wireless network standards supported by BlackBerry, including Mobitex, DataTAC, GSM/GPRS, Nextel and CDMA 1X. FIPS is a security standard that is often mandatory for many government organizations.