Blackberry

The former phone maker is taking its software expertise to the world of self – driving cars. At CES 2017, they are showing how BlackBerry is working on creating software for smart vehicles. QNX, which BlackBerry bought in 2010, has been in the automotive business for 20 years. By partnering with BlackBerry, the goal of QNX is to make a smart and safe car.

While QNX has been building software that is used for auto entertainment systems for years, it is now expanding what it can do. There is more and more software in vehicles these days and the demand will continue to grow. The new Jaguar features both an entertainment system and a digital instrument cluster in the car. QNX has consolidated the two control units into one computer system within the car. It features the standard safety features plus a full screen map. Because the driving features are connected to the entertainment features, QNX has had to develop strong firewalls against malware and other viruses. BlackBerry is hoping that the QNX software will help Ford Motor Company to branch into self-driving technology.

While tech giants like Apple Inc., Uber Technologies Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google are the big players in the autonomous-driving business, Ford hopes to play a part as well by partnering with BlackBerry. BlackBerry plans to put about $100 million into this new venture while it is also dealing with its engineers being hired by the larger companies like Apple. QNX is currently used by at least 40 auto makers.