Paul Rubenstein Lawyer with ABL Law Firm with Blackberry smart phone Source: News Limited YOU'RE likely to elicit some strange stares if you insist Barack Obama, and in fact many of the world's leading business people, are addicts. But they are hooked on their BlackBerrys or, as they were once colloquially known, Crackberries. The device, which revolutionised on-the-go email and irrevocably blurred the lines between work and private life, has been battered and pulped in recent years by more consumer-friendly devices like Apple's iPhone and other smartphones using Google's Android software. It's difficult to fathom how quickly BlackBerry has ceded ground to its rivals, considering that five years ago you could walk into any boardroom in the country and see a bunch of suited men and women engaged in the BlackBerry prayer: hands in laps and heads bowed in quiet contemplation as they silently tapped into their phones. If you didn't know any better, you'd be forgiven for thinking they were praying for guidance. God knows, the company needs it now. Today BlackBerry's shares are down from a 2007 high of $230 to about $6 and its smartphone market share is well below 5 per cent. A few months ago things had become so dire the BlackBerry company had flirted with a $US4.7 billion sale to Fairfax Financial Holdings. It didn't go through with the sale, instead taking on a $US1bn investment from Fairfax and others, and has since shaken up its executives ranks and refocused on the market it once dominated: the business world. Now the message coming from interim chief executive John Chen is to target its "heritage and roots": corporate clients instead of consumer handset sales where Apple and Android dominate. It's a shrewd move because even as some consumers dump BlackBerry in favour of iPhones and Google-powered Android devices, there remains a group of business execs, corporate clients and government departments who continue to swear by the device. "I've had a BlackBerry since they were first released about 10 years ago," says Paul Rubenstein, a partner at leading commercial law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler in Sydney. I've kept it instead of getting an iPhone or some other smartphone because it's predominantly a work tool. The killer thing is the keyboard, which is just fantastic and functional and easy to use. The BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) feature is an instant messaging application that allows users to chat or share content for free. Unlike email, users can conduct several conversations at the same time, see contacts' availability, send files and track message status. Rubenstein says ABL was one of the nation's first professional services firms to adopt a fleet of BlackBerry devices for its lawyers. Partners at the firm are given a choice of either an iPhone or BlackBerry device, but Rubenstein says a healthy proportion still opt for the BlackBerry. There is a split between the personal and workspace on this phone, which is really important when you're dealing with sensitive client information. The iPhone doesn't provide that. Security and dealing with sensitive information has always been a drawcard for corporate clients jumping on the BlackBerry. The company zealously guards its users' private emails and messages - in fact, it's the reason Obama has been allowed to keep his beloved BlackBerry. But its security features have been a double-edged sword. Governments have been concerned that BlackBerry's encryption of users' data - which prevents BlackBerry or any third party, government or otherwise, from accessing private information sent between the devices - could be used by money launderers, terrorists or other criminals. In 2010, the United Arab Emirates briefly banned the device, while in 2011 the BlackBerry's free and secure messaging system copped criticism when it was used by London rioters to organise clashes with police. But for Chris Fitzgerald, head of ICT business at the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau, it's those types of security features that make the BlackBerry so valuable to government departments, which must abide by strict information security policies mandated by the Australian Signals Directorate. "Early on in the piece the iPhone just wasn't compliant with the security policies of the Australian government," he says. On the other hand, the security features on the BlackBerry have been extremely valuable. We need to have the ability that if the device is lost there is no resident data that could be used against us. The attraction to us is that we can control the data that goes to the device so if it's lost we can guarantee control of it and wipe it if we need to. At first, Fitzgerald says ATSB officers couldn't see the point in taking BlackBerrys into the field. But he says they were quickly won over when some of the younger investigators started using them. Today, the bureau has about 90 BlackBerrys in operation among its staff. "The real beauty is that it's a work phone, but you can also have a personal profile that has no effect on the work side," he says. Professional services company Questas has also opted for BlackBerrys over iPhones, with its chief information officer Ferdinando Cosentino saying the latter just doesn't provide the security the business needs. The iPhone is a consumer device, not designed primarily with business in mind. It means an inferior ability for systems administrators to control centrally all features and secure the device down - for example, to prevent users from downloading games," he says. Apple, with the latest 5S and their iOS7 operating system, have added many of these features, so they are slowly catching up. However, the greater data usage and the fact we are unable to lock-down the device and control it centrally are two major issues.