The Washington Post is reporting that the federal government in the U.S. has been making a shift from traditional Blackberry devices to the Apple iPhone and iPad.

Here’s an excerpt:

“The demand we are seeing now in the last 90 days has been just extraordinary,” said Tim Hoechst, chief technology officer at Agilex Technologies, which is helping federal agencies integrate Apple products into workforces. (Like other contractors racing to meet demand, Agliex practices what it preaches; it has replaced its sign-in book at the reception desk with an iPad.) “It’s like everybody is saying, ‘This is really happening here now.’?”

The report details how employees are trading in Blackberry phones for iPhones, switching from Microsoft Outlook to Gmail and some laptops for the iPad.

The federal government’s chief information officer, Vivek Kundra, brings up a great but embarrassing point in why this shift needs to happen:

“People have better access to information technology at their homes than they do at work, and that’s especially true in the public sector,”

“If you look at the average school kid, he or she probably has better technology in his or her backpack than most of us do in government offices.”

We can all agree that it is nice to see our government finally deciding to move up in technology.

Even Obama has an iPad!

(via Washington Post)