The White House and American government departments are still buying BlackBerrys, RIM's senior VP of security told Bloomberg, claiming that RIM had increased its share in the federal contract market.

RIM's BlackBerry, one of few handsets to be security-approved by the Feds, is the top seller in US federal markets, said Scott Totzke. The Canadian company's security veep said the handset had increased its install base slightly over the past year.

“Compared to the enterprise over the last year-and-a-half or so, the federal business on whole is up,” he said.

RIM can't rest on its laurels, however: the federal market is shrinking as the US government slices jobs.

And perhaps more significantly, several Android phones have the necessary FIPS 140-2 certification as mandated by the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 – and Apple is known to be actively seeking it for the iPhone.

It is not known whether President Obama still uses a BlackBerry. ®