Federal Government Loosens Its Grip on the BlackBerry

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.