Ford Goes All-Out for iPhones

Ford Motor Co. is replacing the Blackberry smartphones used by 6,000 of its managers with Apple iPhones over the next two years, Bloomberg News reports.

The company expects to deploy about 3,300 of the phones worldwide by the end of 2014.

The move comes as Apple begins a partnership with International Business Machines Corp. to develop business software for iPhones and iPad tablets. Ford tells Bloomberg that moving its executives to a single smartphone design will improve security and simplify the company's IT management.

Ford's decision is a blow to Blackberry, which also has vowed to develop services for business customers. But media reports in February indicated Ford will migrate the next generation of its troubled Sync telematics system to Blackberry's QNX operating system. Sync currently runs on an in-car version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows platform.