mLearnCon News and Updates

Research in Motion Ltd. (RIMM)’s PlayBook tablet computer, panned at its April debut, has an edge over Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPad in the Army thanks to RIM’s encrypted servers.

That advantage may soon dissipate as Apple’s more broadly popular devices march toward Defense Department security certification, which may come as early as this month, military officials said.

Tablet computers are being tested across all military branches, according to interviews conducted by Bloomberg Government since May 17. The services pay $500 to $600 per tablet, less than half the cost of laptops that are “ruggedized,” or enhanced with a shell and toughened to withstand harsh environments. Tablets also may replace paper manuals, maps, biometric devices and some communications tools.

The U.S. Army is leaning toward the PlayBook because RIM “addressed security concerns from the get-go,” said Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dosmann, who oversees mobile device pilot- testing for the Army’s cybersecurity division. Security remains an issue for Apple and may hold back wider use of iPads, he said.

Apple, Dell Inc. (DELL), RIM and other tablet makers are vying to tap the military market for computers, laptops and servers worth $2.9 billion in the government’s 2010 fiscal year. Of that amount, spending on enhanced laptops was $33 million. The department spent $37 million on tablets in the same fiscal year, according to Bloomberg data.

‘Disruptive Technology’

Tablets are a “disruptive technology” that can replace heavier and more expensive equipment, Dosmann said. “As an infantry soldier, the last thing I want is something more to carry.”

To secure the devices so they can only be accessed using the common access card carried by all military service members and Defense employees, the services must install additional software or hardware, Gary Winkler, the Army’s former program executive officer for enterprise information systems, said in a June 20 telephone interview. Winkler oversaw about $4 billion, or 56 percent, of the Army’s information-technology budget.

“It’s very tough to drive the manufacturers to make the tablets and the devices with the embedded security that only the Defense Department needs or only parts of the federal government needs because the market just isn’t big enough,” said Winkler, who now heads Fairfax, Virginia-based Cyber Solutions and Services Inc., a government consulting and contracts support company.

Read more here from Bloomberg.

Somewhere in America, perhaps at this very moment, a bad guy is under video surveillance. He is being watched, every movement, every step — but not on a little TV. That’s so 2009. Instead, a special agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is keeping tabs on an iPad.

This is not a movie. This is not a Steve Jobs dream. This is the federal government 2.0, where technology upgrades no longer come at a “Little House on the Prairie” pace. Even President Obama, a BlackBerry devotee, has upgraded. He now owns an iPad, and it has been seen on his desk and under his arm.

The flashy consumer products that have been adopted in the corporate workforce — upending BlackBerrys for iPhones, Microsoft Outlook for Gmail, and lately laptops for iPads — are now invading the federal government. The State Department. The Army. The Department of Veterans Affairs. NASA. The General Services Administration is in the process of moving 17,000 employees onto Gmail.

The stakes are huge. The change may damage companies long associated with Washington work culture, but officials say the shift will make workers more productive while slashing billions from the $80 billion spent annually on information technology. The government is trying to keep up with federal workers’ interest in the new gadgets.

“The demand we are seeing now in the last 90 days has been just extraordinary,” said Tim Hoechst, chief technology officer at Agilex Technologies, which is helping federal agencies integrate Apple products into workforces. (Like other contractors racing to meet demand, Agliex practices what it preaches; it has replaced its sign-in book at the reception desk with an iPad.) “It’s like everybody is saying, ‘This is really happening here now.’?”

Read more here from The Washington Post

Washington Post. In an interview with Vivek Kundra, America’s chief information officer, it becomes clear that Obama is at the tip of the IT-change spear. That’s because the U.S. government is getting its workers to walk away from their desks with handheld devices connected over the so-called cloud.

(Just because Obama has an iPad, it doesn’t mean he has ditched his Blackberry. On May 16, Obama dropped it on an air base taxi way as he strode mightily “to meet military personnel and well-wishers in flood-affected Memphis,” according to the DailyMail that provided photographs of the fall and rise of the Presidential Blackberry.)

The government — and most likely other workplaces – are beginning to respond to an important trend — most workers have better technology at home than in their offices. According to Forrester Research, 35% of U.S. workers either “buy their own smartphone for work, use unsanctioned Web sites or download unapproved applications on a work computer.”

Read more from Forbes here

The U.S. Army has enlisted Google's Android platform to power its first. The Army is developing a device called the Joint Battle Command-Platform, or JBC-P Handheld, along with a suite of apps for tactical operations to be used in the field of battle.

Dubbed the Mobile/Handheld Environment (CE), the JBC-P Handheld's platform is an altered version of Android, equipped with Mission Command apps that provide tools for tasks like mapping, force tracking, tactical ground reporting, and critical messaging. It will also include features like an address book and Open Office app.

That's just the baseline for the ecosystem. The Army will open the Mobile/Handheld CE development kit to third-party developers in July.

"It's like when you get an iPhone and you have the Apple-made apps: the contacts, the email," Tyler J. Barton, an engineer working with the Army to help design the apps, said in a report on the Army Web site. "Then other applications are free to use those apps, or to go above and beyond that."

Read the full article from PCMag here

The European Commission has ruled that member states open two radio frequencies to the newest generation of mobile devices to enable faster Internet use on the move.

EU member states must implement the new rule to allow 4th generation mobile devices access to 900 and 1,800 MHz radio frequencies by the end of the year.

Mobile wireless capability is central to the EU's Digital Agenda and it believes that an increase in Internet uptake will boost competitiveness of the EU's common market.

Neelie Kroes, Commissioner for the EU's Digital Agenda, said in a statement that the "the decision opens the way for the latest 4G mobile devices to gain access to the radio spectrum they need to operate."

The new rules will "stimulate high-speed broadband services and foster more competition," she said.

4G is the next generation of mobile phone wireless standards, which includes Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) and is more advanced as well as faster than 3G and 2G standards.

Read the full report here from Reuters.com, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/18/us-eu-telecoms-idUSTRE73H4PX20110418