The exodus continues: Home Depot drops BlackBerry for iPhone

Earns Home Depot

It hasn’t even been a week since we reported that Australia’s Treasury Department would be trading in their BlackBerry devices for iPhones, and there’s already a new story on the Canadian handset-maker losing another major enterprise customer.

The word is that Home Depot, a home improvement retail chain and the 5th largest retailer in the world, is also looking to drop their BlackBerrys in favor of Apple’s popular smartphone. And the account is a big one, worth over 10,000 handsets…

AppleInsider reports:

“People familiar with the big-box retailer’s plans said the company has already begun the process of abandoning the Blackberry platform for Apple’s iOS, specifically for store managers and all corporate level employees. A representative for the home improvement chain confirmed the news to AppleInsider, saying the move will displace roughly 10,000 Blackberry smartphones.”

The news comes at a terrible time for BlackBerry (formerly RIM), who just recently unveiled its new mobile operating system, BB10, and two new devices. The company is betting everything on the new platform, hoping it can turn around its business.

Home Depot, who reported $18.13 billion in revenue in its most recent quarter, is the latest in a series of corporate and government heavyweights to drop the BlackBerry platform that once enjoyed being the gold standard in mobile enterprise technology.

Last November, the US National Transportation Safety Board announced that it was going to be dropping its BlackBerry devices in favor of iPhones. And in the month prior to that, the Defense Department confirmed a similar move worth 162,000+ handsets.

When reached for a statement on the Home Depot exodus, spokeswoman Amy McDowell told AllThingsD that the company is still confident that “BlackBerry is, and will continue to be, the best solution for corporations managing large smartphone deployments.”