President Obama warned that “they’re going to have to pry it out of my hands” – now he has won his first battle with Washington’s bureaucracy by keeping his lifeline to the outside world. The White House confirmed portentously yesterday: “The President has a BlackBerry.”

Robert Gibbs, his press secretary, said that a compromise had been negotiated that allows the President to “stay in touch with senior staff and a small number of personal friends”. He added, though, that the President’s access “will be limited and the security enhanced”.

According to reports, Mr Obama is in line to receive an upgraded phone fitted with “a superencryption package” to deter hackers.

Even if the new device eliminates the security fears that have prevented presidents carrying mobile telephones, other concerns are likely to remain. A record of all e-mails and text messages are, Mr Gibbs confirmed, required to be preserved under the Presidential Records Act 1978. John Podesta, who ran the President’s transition team, wrote in the Los Angeles Times this week: “Let the man have his BlackBerry. Without his virtual connection to old friends and trusted confidants beyond the bubble that seals off every president from the people who elected him, he’d be like a caged lion padding restlessly around the West Wing.

“An off-line Obama isn’t just bad for Barack. It’s bad for all of us.”

Those who are expecting the dawn of a “wired White House” will have to wait a little longer as the youthful architects of “Obama 2.0” scratch their heads over the clunking technology left behind by the Bush Administration.

After running the most tech-savvy election campaign ever seen, Mr Obama’s aides have been confronted with six-year-old Microsoft software, a scarcity of laptops, disconnected phone lines and a ban on instant messaging and Facebook.

“It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari,” Bill Burton, Mr Obama’s spokesman, told The Washington Post.

Explore Tech & Web

• Personal Tech

• The Web

• Gadgets & Gaming