“The NYPD has to scrap the 36,000 smartphones it gave cops over the past two years because they’re already obsolete and can’t be upgraded, The Post has learned,” Tina Moore reports for The NY Post. “The city bought Microsoft-based Nokia smartphones as part of a $160 million NYPD Mobility Initiative that Mayor Bill de Blasio touted as ‘a huge step into the 21st century.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Idiots.
“But just months after the last phone was handed out, officials plan to begin replacing them all with brand-new iPhones by the end of the year, sources said,” Moore reports. “The move follows Microsoft’s recent decision to stop supporting the operating system that runs the NYPD’s devices and nearly a dozen custom-engineered apps.”
“Law enforcement sources blamed the boondoggle on NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Information Technology Jessica Tisch, with one saying, ‘She drove the whole process,'” Moore reports. “‘Nobody purchases 36,000 phones based on the judgment of one person,’ a source said. ‘I don’t care if you’re Jesus f- -king Christ, you get a panel of experts.'”
MacDailyNews Take: That source certainly sounds like a genuine New Yorker. 😉
“Technology experts had long questioned the NYPD’s decision to choose Microsoft-based phones,” Moore reports. “CNET, the popular site for tech news and reviews, also expressed dismay at the NYPD’s choice. ‘You read that right. Life and death situations rely on outdated phones running Microsoft’s Windows Phone software,’ read an October report, which was posted with the headline, ‘This is NYPD’s official crime-fighting phone.'”
“The NYPD bought two models of Nokia phones: the Lumia 830, first released in October 2014, and the Lumia 640XL, which was rolled out in March 2015,” Moore reports. “Both of the NYPD phones — and their Microsoft-engineered apps — run on the Windows 8.1 operating system, which the company announced it would no longer support after July 11.”
“Sources said Tisch, whose late grandfather co-founded the Loews Corp. conglomerate, insisted on Microsoft-based phones in part because the NYPD was already using Microsoft software to run the video surveillance program at its Lower Manhattan Security Initiative Command Center,” Moore reports. “‘She was in charge. It was her project, no question about that,’ a source said. Even then-NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton acknowledged Tisch’s role in the decision-making process when officials announced the smartphone plan in October 2014. ‘She’s a terror if she doesn’t get her way, so I usually let her get her way,’ Bratton had joked. ‘So she’s certainly getting her way with this technology.'”
MacDailyNews Take: The very definition of “IT doofus.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yet another stellar example of your tax dollars at work.
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away. — Ronald Reagan