If you were ever wondering why the BlackBerry wasn’t secure enough for France, you might want to take a look at the Sectéra Edge, the smartphone that’s being developed for the NSA and soldiers in the field. Some of the security features include:

* Secure wireless access to the SIPRNET and NIPRNET
* DoD PKI enabled Common Access Card (CAC) support
* Supports DoD 8100.2 requirements
* Type 1 encrypted storage of classified data
* Can be used inside closed areas with “SCIF-Friendly” mode

On top of that, this thing was built extra-rugged for combat conditions, as seen in their demo video. The Edge works on CDMA, GSM and Wi-Fi, and also plays nice with S/MIME BlackBerry users. Apparently the NSA has ordered up $300-million-worth of these things over the next five years, so if you’re in the U.S. Army, keep your eyes peeled.