The City of Cambridge, IBM and RIM have announced a partnership that will see City staff get outfitted with the BlackBerry PlayBook. The reason is to apparently “enhance Asset Management and related business processes for the municipality”. City workers have actually been using IBM’s Analytics for City Services and Safety’ (ACCESS) program since last June, but now to help them streamline their capital spending they’ve made the PlayBook available to workers in the field.
The City of Cambridge manages more than $1.2 billion worth of assets (buildings, sewer systems and roadways) and the PlayBook will help them quickly “compile, synchronize and better understand information” on how to improve accuracy, effectiveness and efficiency of the Transportation and Public Works Department.
Peter Fortune, Director, Strategic Alliances, Software & Services at RIM stated that “The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet provides an ideal mobile computing platform that allows governments to increase productivity and response times. RIM is excited to be working with the City of Cambridge on this important project.”
There’s no word on how many PlayBooks are in City workers hands or the cost savings. However, it’s cool to see the PlayBook, which was first dubbed as the “world’s first professional tablet”, truly being used in the wild (looking at the picture it shows the PlayBook and the new keyboard case). RIM will be announcing their quarterly results soon – over 850,000 PlayBooks sold to-date and rumours are that sales have now topped above the 1 million mark.
Source: Cambridge Now
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