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“I’m not allowed for security reasons to have an iPhone,” he said.

Over the last several years, BlackBerry — once a leader in the global smartphone market — has seen its share of the mobile industry decimated in the face of overwhelming competition from Apple’s iPhone and devices running on Google Inc.’s Android software, especially those produced by Korea’s Samsung Electronics Ltd.

Still, the company’s smartphones remain popular among some government agencies and some large corporations, thanks in part to BlackBerry’s reputation for security and encryption technologies.

For BlackBerry, news that President Obama — who famously lobbied the Secret Service to be allowed keep his BlackBerry after being inaugurated in 2009 — will still be seen scrolling through messages on his BlackBerry comes at at time when the struggling Waterloo, Ont. company is fighting desperately to retain its image as the secure choice for enterprise customers and top executives.

Earlier this week, interim BlackBerry chief executive John Chen issued an open letter to the company’s core enterprise users, reiterating the tech firm’s commitment to its corporate clients, the latest move in a series of shifts designed to refocus the Waterloo, Ont. company away from its consumer ambitions and back on its business user audience.

In the letter, Mr. Chen highlighted BlackBerry’s numerous government security certifications as one reason why businesses should trust the Waterloo, Ont.-based company to secure and manage their mobile devices.

Mr. Chen believes that any hope for a turnaround at the struggling smartphone company lies with its enterprise users and BlackBerry’s ability to transition from a seller of handsets to a company that is able to provide a range of services for large organizations, namely the managing and securing of multiple devices using the BlackBerry Enterprise Service.