RIM losing U. S. federal customers

TORONTO — Research In Motion’s BlackBerry smartphone has struggled to win over U. S. consumers but the Canadian company has long been able to rely on the loyalty of corporate and government clients who depend on its secure email. No more. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a U. S. federal agency that studies climate and the environment, plans to replace some of its employees’ Blackberrys with Apple iphones and get rid of the servers that power RIM’S smartphones by June. “It all comes down to economics,” Joe Klimavicz, NOAA’S chief information offi cer, said Friday. “I’ve got a lot of pressure to cut our operating costs.”