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Chalk this up as one of the stranger corporate announcements this week, delivered by BlackBerry CEO John Chen on the company’s earnings conference call.

The back of the Boeing Black phone, as seen in an FCC filing earlier this year.
The back of the Boeing Black phone, as seen in an FCC filing by the company earlier this year.

“We are pleased to announce that Boeing is collaborating with BlackBerry to provide secure mobile solution for Android devices utilizing our BES 12 platform. That, by the way, is all they allow me to say. So sorry (if) it seems like I am reading it word for word. .. I’m true to my commitment here.”

Why the cloak-and-dagger approach? Reuters reports that the phone is the “Boeing Black” phone, a secure Android device that first surfaced in an FCC filing earlier this year.

The phone is being sold to government agencies and defense contractors. It’s a sealed device, with epoxy around the casing and tamper-proof screws to prevent it from being opened.

“Any attempt to break open the casing of the device would trigger functions that would delete the data and software contained within the device and make the device inoperable,” a lawyer for Boeing wrote in a letter to the FCC along with the filing.

Yes, it’s a self-destructing phone.

The letter explained, “The device will be marketed and sold in a manner such that low level technical and operational information about the product will not be provided to the general public. Detailed technical information distributed at trade shows will be limited or protected by non-disclosure agreements.”

Update: A Boeing spokesman sent us this statement.

Boeing is collaborating with Blackberry to provide secure mobile solutions for Android devices utilizing their BES-12 platform.  We see the need for end-to-end, layered security in the mobile ecosystem that supports our defense and security customers.

Boeing has decades of experience providing defense and security customers with secure communications. Over the past couple of years, the company has developed and introduced its own secure smartphone, Boeing Black, exclusively for defense and security customers.  We are working with BlackBerry to help them ensure the BES 12 operating system is compatible with, and optimized for use by, the ultra-secure mobile devices favored by the defense and security community.

Due to customer sensitivities, we cannot disclose who is currently using Boeing Black or considering a purchase.

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