This is very bad for RIM:

Joining the large crop of businesses and organizations dropping the BlackBerry, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration plans to provide employees with Apple’s iPhones and iPads instead.

The government agency, based in Washington, cited the steep cost of Research in Motion’s software, which is used to secure and manage BlackBerry devices, as the primary reason for the switch, which was first reported Thursday by The Loop. The agency has distributed about 3,000 BlackBerry devices among 20,000 workers, and plans to move to the Apple devices beginning in May.

If many more decide that BES is too expensive (as happened here), that becomes a serious risk for RIM's future business. Also: the NOAA is shifting to Google Apps; it tried Android but decided the Apple products were a better fit.