Oil Firm Halliburton Dumps BlackBerry for iPhone

One of the the United States' most widely-known companies, Halliburton Co., is reportedly ditching the Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry for its employees and replacing it with the Apple iPhone.

It's a rare move for an entire firm to make such a smartphone migration, particularly one as large as Halliburton.

Although Halliburton has been around in one form or another since the early twentieth century, it was during the recent Iraq War that the company became a household name.

Starting with the lead-up to the Iraqi invasion, Halliburton was one of the U.S. federal government's most important contractors during the conflict, raking in billions of dollars in war-related revenue. (Source: bbc.co.uk)

One More Blow Against BlackBerry-Maker

Halliburton's contribution to the war has made it a very visible corporate entity, so that its recent decision to migrate from one major smartphone company to another is drawing lots of media attention.

The move  is also seen by analysts as one more devastating blow to the Waterloo, Canada-based Research in Motion, which after a disastrous 2011 decided to undergo a major executive overhaul last month.

Halliburton noted in a statement that it has decided to replace the firm's 4,500 BlackBerry smartphones with Apple's iPhones. A spokesperson omitted specific reasons why the company made the move, but did suggest that the iPhone simply fit better with the firm's future mobile plans.

"We are making this transition in order to better support our mobile applications initiatives," the spokeswoman said.

"Halliburton has engaged with Apple on this transition, which is scheduled to take place over the next two years." (Source: wsj.com)

Leaked Memo Suggests Move Could Take Just 12 Months

It's worth noting that while Halliburton publicly announced it would take two years to make the transition from BlackBerrys to iPhones, a leaked internal memorandum suggests the move may actually take about half that time. 

Research in Motion has seen its share of the smartphone market decline from a high of over 42 per cent two years ago to just 16 per cent at the end of 2011. (Source: financialpost.com)