European Commission rejected BlackBerrys

As the row over BlackBerry security continues to rumble on, there was more bad news for Research In Motion today with news emerging that the European Commission rejected use of the devices in favour of the iPhone and HTC handsets.

The European Union's executive body reviewed the use of smartphones by its staff, which number over 30,000, two years ago, according to a Reuters report today.

"Following this evaluation, the HTC and the iPhones emerged as the most suitable platforms for voice/mail-centric mobile devices," a Commission spokesman told Reuters in an email.

"As a result, the Commission currently supports these two platforms."

The news will be a blow to RIM as it struggles to fend off strong competition from Apple and phones running Google's Android operating system.

Apple pulled off a coup in May when UK bank Standard Chartered offered its worldwide workforce the chance to switch from BlackBerry to iPhone.

The decision by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this week to ban key BlackBerry services has added to RIM's woes.

However, somewhat ironically, these "security concerns" appear more to be due to the fact that BlackBerrys are too secure, with both authorities expressing concerns that they can't monitor encrypted communications made over the devices.

For its part, the UK government remains convinced that BlackBerrys are the most secure smartphone around, saying in June that it would not sanction ministerial use of iPhones for official business due to security concerns.

"The only mobile telecoms or personal digital assistant devices that have been issued to ministers of the department are BlackBerrys," said health secretary Simon Burns.

"The department does not issue Apple iPhones to staff as these are not approved for government use by the Communications-Electronics Security Group [CESG]."