You’ve probably seen the article in Saturday’s Washington Post, Government Enters Fray Over BlackBerry Patents. The story covers the Justice Department’s request to the federal court “to delay any immediate shutdown of the popular wireless e-mail system to ensure that state and federal workers can continue to use their devices.�
Why? Because, according to the Post article, “there are more than 3 million BlackBerry users in the United States, approximately 10 percent of whom are state and federal government employees.�
Ten percent of BlackBerry users are in government? That seems huge to me. According to a recent press release on the BlackBerry site
BlackBerry allows government employees to stay connected with secure, wireless access to email, data, phone, web and organizer features, and helps employees respond quicker and make decisions faster. The end results for government agencies can include an increase in knowledge sharing, a stronger connection to constituents and more efficient and adaptive processes. BlackBerry is already widely used by government personnel, and the government sector currently accounts for approximately ten percent of all BlackBerry subscribers.
Aside from the connection to constituents (which I think is largely bogus -- constituent emails get printed replies, I believe ) these uses sound the same as they would for any other vertical industry – financial services, healthcare, media, etc. What makes government workers to addicted to information?
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