After more than 10 years as the go-to device on Capitol Hill, U.S. Congress will no longer be using BlackBerry as their exclusive smartphone provider.
The news comes at a bad time for the once mighty Canadian tech company. Last week, BlackBerry reported a $860 million net loss in the first quarter of its 2017 financial year.
The Washington connection had long been a source of pride for the company known for its security features. BlackBerry CEO John Chen had previously told USA Today the company relied on governments and heads of state of developed companies to remain loyal to the phones.
READ MORE: Do world leaders like Obama still use Blackberry smartphones?
An internal memo from the U.S. Senate’s Sergent of Arms was sent to staff saying the new Blackberry OS 10 would no longer be issued as it was being discontinued. Instead, the Samsung galaxy S6 and the iPhone SE would be available.
“Once we have exhausted our current in-house stock, new device procurements will be limited, while supplies last, to warranty exchanges only,” the message read.
In a statement given to the blog CrackBerry, BlackBerry said that the memo was incorrect in stating the BlackBerry 10 was being discontinued.
“We’ll continue to support our BlackBerry 10 platform while expanding our device offering to include Android-based devices,” the statement read.
Blackberry will continue to support the existing smartphones in the Senate and the remaining 600 or so phones will be available to staffers until the supply runs out.
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