Boeing Says China Will Need 5,260 New Airplanes By 2031
China will need 5,260 new commercial airplanes, valued at $670 billion, over the next 20 years, according to Boeing, one of the providers of passenger airplanes for China. REUTERS

The US-based Boeing Company is planning to develop an in-house secure mobile phone for government and military purposes. The multinational organisation's other products include satellites, weapons, launch systems, military aircraft, defense systems and enhanced information as well as communication systems.

According to the National Defense magazine, the company is developing a mobile phone that will run on the Android operating system and which the company hopes can deal a killer blow to other manufacturers who provide similar secure communications devices.

"Probably, for the first time the aerospace and defense industry giant will provide a communication device designed to utilise cellular networks," said Roger Krone, President of Boeing Network and Space Systems. The phone will reportedly simply be called "the Boeing phone", be launched later in the year and be inexpensive compared to similar products, which range from between $15,000 and $20,000.

"We believe that there is major interest in the defense side as well as the intelligence side and in the commercial world as well," said Brian Palma, Vice President of the company's Secure Infrastructure Group. The company remains tight-lipped about the device's features.

"Whether "the Boeing phone" will carry the company's brand name has not been decided," added Krone.

Meanwhile, according to their blog, Boeing sees a larger business trend since at one point employees went to work to take advantage of information technology. Today, it seems, the opposite happens - employees wonder why their work has far less computers and phones.

"The users of high-end phones need the same ability to make use of popular applications while knowing that their business communications are secure, since it aims to look at the opportunities in emergency responder market," said Brian Palma. Hence, the purpose of developing such a phone is to enable security capabilities. The high-end device will be a real secure phone to manage sensitive information. Naturally, the owners of the secure Android phone won't be playing fun apps but will offer the functionality from the security perspective.

BlackBerry Android