The Boeing Corporation has been working on an Android-based, highly secure mobile phone and aims to launch it later this year, National Defense Magazine reports.

Boeing Network and Space Systems president Roger Krone shared that while other manufacturers of encrypted devices for military and government use price their offerings between $15,000 and $20,000 per device, Boeing plans to set "a lower price point, but … not mass-market price point.”

Contrary to the existing tendency of super secure devices using proprietary software, Boeing has decided upon an Android-based system because it wants to attract users who want to have the option of using the same popular apps that regular users do, all the while knowing that their business communications are secure.

Boeing's executives say that it is still being decided whether the phone will bear the company's name, and have declined to name their partners in this endeavor.

The announcement must have shaken Research In Motion a bit.

Its Blackberry is currently a favorite of many governments and its officials, but with the influence of Boeing's US government contacts and contracts, it is almost assured that the company will be given a fair chance to prove their offering's superiority.

I guess only time will tell if their choice of using Android was right.