White House gets a massive tech overhaul, but Obama still uses a BlackBerry

The wheels of government turn slowly, especially when it comes to technology. So when one branch, the executive, gets an upgrade, it’s worth noting, especially since it's unlikely to happen again during this or the next administration.

According to The New York Times, the White House is in the midst of a tech overhaul. Under the direction of White House Information Technology Director David Recordon, the West Wing has been ripping out wires (13,000 lbs. worth), super-charging the Wi-Fi network and replacing aging computers with fresh 21st century systems and hardware.

Some White House employees are now even carrying spiffy new iPhones. President Barack Obama, on the other hand, is still carrying a specially secured Blackberry. The White House will not reveal if it’s an aging BlackBerry Curve (we hope not), a square Passport (surely we’d notice the bulge in his breast pocket) or a spanking new, touchscreen, keyboard-hiding Priv.

Recordon, who came to the Whitehouse from Facebook, was originally part of the U.S. Digital Service a team of third party engineers and tech leaders who were tasked with reinventing the U.S. Government’s myriad digital services, think constituent-facing websites for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Healthcare.gov and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. His success there led the White House to hire him for a more internal effort.

“His considerable private sector experience and ability to deploy the latest collaborative and communication technologies will be a great asset to our work on behalf of the American people.” said President Obama, when Recordon joined the White House in March of last year.

Now, it appears that Recordon is finally getting to deliver on that promise, integrating new color printers, faster Wi-Fi and computers with -- according to the New York Times -- modern CPUs and solid state drives into the White House tech ecosystem. They even updated the West Wing visitor system to a new, Web-based one. The New York Times reports that the upgrades all came out of existing budget money. The White House has not offered any specifics, like computer brands, for the upgrades.

The Wi-Fi upgrade should be especially good news for Obama’s daughters, Malia and Sasha, who were, according to Obama, irritated by the poor quality and coverage.

Perhaps no one will appreciate the upgrade more, though, than the president. In 2011, he decried the sorry state of White House technology in off-the-cuff remarks caught by an open mic during a fundraiser. When he took office in January 2009, Obama expected “real cool phones and stuff…Where’s the fancy buttons and stuff, and the big screen comes up? It doesn’t happen.”

More recently, Obama made it clear that the pop-culture depiction of presidential-grade technology and the real world are far apart. During a South by Southwest Q+A in March, the president explained that moves and TV shows “make it appear as if I’m in the [Situation] room and moving things. [We] have half a finger print and a half an hour later I’m tracking a guy on streets of Istanbul. Doesn’t work that way, no. Sometimes I’m just trying to get a connection.”

Well, with the new digital phone service, there’s a good chance Obama can finally stop worrying about getting a good connection.

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