It seems that members of Congress and their staff are having a hard time with the new BlackBerry Storm. After using the device and finding it difficult to do simple tasks like sending email, most users on Capitol Hill are ditching the touch screen for older BlackBerrys with an actual qwerty keyboard. One staffer summed up the experience this way:

“Three days later,” Mollineau said, “I literally walk in and he’s cursing with four-letter words, and he was slamming it down, saying, ‘I can’t get e-mail to work all right.’ It just is not for people here who mainly use their BlackBerrys for that.”

Okay, where do I start? First of all, given the collective age of the members of Congress I assume that most of them would be more comfortable with a rotary phone than any kind of keypad let alone a virtual keyboard. I can imagine the thoughts running through their heads as they fired up the Storm for the first time. It would almost be like handing them a piece of alien technology found on the ground in Roswell and expecting them to use it. That just ain’t gonna happen folks.

Seriously, when the vice president of the United States asks “What is the web site number?” what do you expect?

Much to the surprise of many people President Obama was allowed to keep his BlackBerry. There was great speculation on if he would have to not only transition into his presidency but also fight the BlackBerry withdrawals.

"The president has a BlackBerry," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday, clearing up weeks of speculation about whether President Obama would be able to hold on to a cherished method of communicating.

The decision to allow Obama to keep a Smartphone is "a compromise that allows him to stay in touch with senior staff and a small group of personal friends," Gibbs told the media in his first press conference since the inauguration.

"Use will be limited and the security is enhanced to ensure his ability to communicate but to do so effectively," Gibbs also said. "And to do so in a way that is protected."

One thing to understand is that this is know ordinary BlackBerry. According to Marc Ambinder from the National Security Agency the cost of the 'BarackBerry' is tagged at $3,350 (is this with or without the 2-year contract?).

The special phone will be able to encrypt calls for the President as well as view classified documents, but can it keep a call going and not drop out when it rains hard or he travels into a tunnel? If they have that technology they need to pass it along to Verizon so that my blackberry will stop dropping calls!

All of you blackberry addicts out there know the exhilaration that comes with worldwide connectivity in the palm of your hand. What would you feel like with this umbilical chord removed!?!

Well the President elect will soon find out, word on the street is he will have to live without email as the president (and by street I mean the NY Times). It seems that email is a security risk and hard to archive for the public records. The same NY Times article also mentions that President elect Obama plans on having a laptop on the desk in the Oval Office,

"Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so."

Sounds like a good step in the right direction, just don't be surprised if you see President Obama "borrowing" his aides blackberry. Hey it's a tough habit to break.

Watching the election results come in - photo from Barack Obama's photostream.