Automotive News Canada - April 2021-v2 - 12

* APRIL 2021

BlackBerry: We won't
get the code shoulder
The Canadian software
giant's market share has
eroded, but QNX's trump
card could be security
By ROBERT BOSTELAAR
O T TAWA C O R R E S P O N D E N T

THE LINES OF CODING THAT FORM
the BlackBerry QNX operating system could be Canada's largest contribution to the automotive world. Since
1998, they've found their way into 175
million vehicles, primarily to govern
the audio, navigation and similar dashboard functions known as infotainment.
Even as Apple CarPlay and Android
Auto allowed drivers to override the
vehicle systems with their smartphones, it was still QNX, as often as
not, making the connections in the
background.
But BlackBerry's prominence
in infotainment software is waning
fast. Its share of the market has fallen
to just 28 per cent from more than 50
per cent in 2015, according to industry
tracker IHS Markit, and will take a further hit when automaker Ford moves
to Google Android to directly power
infotainment in millions of cars starting in 2023.
Ford, which announced the switch
in February, joins General Motors,
Volvo, Nissan and others in embracing
Google, at least partly for access to revenue from a rich array of third-party
apps that consumers can load as easily
to their cars as to their phones.
Ford represents at least 20 per cent
of BlackBerry's remaining infotainment business, IHS Markit says.
For BlackBerry, the losses to Google
and other Linux-based operating systems could bring to mind its earlier
descent from leading handset maker

BlackBerry's QNX operating system has been installed in 175 million vehicles, primarily to run infotainment systems.
Google is making inroads into QNX's territory, however, with the latest blow being Ford's decision to move Sync to
Google Android from BlackBerry. I L L U S T R AT I O N : B L A C K B E R R Y

and Canadian tech darling to near-collapse after Apple introduced the
iPhone. The Waterloo, Ont.-based company was forced to reinvent itself as a
security software and service provider,
with many of its offerings built around
the Ottawa QNX division it acquired
in 2010.

'WE SAW THIS COMING'
But analysts and QNX itself suggest a more promising outcome, with
BlackBerry already taking on a new,
larger role as car-computer traffic cop.
" We saw this coming years ago, "
said Grant Courville, BlackBerry QNX's
vice-president of products and strategy.
" We saw infotainment becoming
much more consumer-centric, and I
should really say much more application-centric, " Courville said. That's a

Google switch could change
focus for Ford tech centre
FORD MOTOR CO.'S DECISION
to drop the BlackBerry QNX operating system appears to add insult
to injury: The latest version of Sync
version was also developed with a
significant contribution from Ford's
Ottawa research and engineering
centre - many of the staff are former
BlackBerry employees. With Google
Android becoming the new software
foundation, future Sync work could
shift elsewhere.
Unlike an assembly plant that
has lost its product, however, the
tech centre can more easily change
gears and adapt. In 2017, Ford
announced a $500-million investment - including $200 million in
federal and Ontario contributions
- to set up the Ottawa facility plus
satellite offices in Oakville and

Waterloo, Ont.
Ford said it would hire 400
engineers, including 300 based in
Canada, to work on software and
hardware for mobile connectivity.
Beyond Sync, the centre is
known to be working on the emerging 5G wireless standard and related V2X, or vehicle-to-everything,
communications.
Ford declined to discuss tech
research, but Ford Canada spokesman Matt Drennan-Scace said the
Ottawa centre continues to hire software experts. The company does not
disclose head count.
" What I can say about the team
in Ottawa is that it has grown by
more than 80 per cent since launching in March 2017 and continues to
grow, " he said. - ANC

direction at odds with QNX's lockeddown coding.
Equally clear, though, was the profusion of electronic systems in the
ever-growing merger of car and computer and the need
to keep them operating securely
and in harmony,
Courville said.
QNX respondCourville:
ed with products
" We saw
such as Hypervisor,
infotainment
which puts firewalls
becoming much between operating
more consumer- systems running on
centric, and I
the same hardware
should really
to prevent any probsay much more
lem from spreading.
applicationA key selling
centric. "
point, BlackBerry
FILE PHOTO
believes, is its
long-standing reputation for reliability that led then-Michigan-based Delphi
Automotive to seek out QNX software
for the U.S. supplier's nascent infotainment systems in the 1990s. Delphi liked
the Canadian company's record in such
demanding environments as nuclear power and medical imaging, said
Courville, who joined QNX in the early
1980s.
Today, QNX points to its attainment
of the ISO manufacturing certifications
that carmakers value and to a history of
delivering products on time.
" We've never delayed a start-of-production date, which is a statistic
that doesn't get a lot of airtime, but
it's one we're extremely proud of, "
Courville said.

DAVID VS. GOOGLE-IATHS
BlackBerry has technology and automaker alliances around the world, from
semiconductor specialist Qualcomm in
California and parts maker Hyundai
Mobis in South Korea, to Chinese
Internet giant Baidu, which is developing an autonomous car. The company is working with 19 of the top 25 electric-vehicle manufacturers, Courville

said, and has a deal with Amazon Web
Services to offer a portal that links cars
with the Internet cloud.
Yet in the global picture, BlackBerry
remains a $7.4-billion David battling Google and other trillion-dollar
Goliaths. Apple Inc. is readying software for a car it might launch as early
as 2024. And Microsoft and top-ranked
global supplier Robert Bosch have
teamed to develop their own platform
for over-the-air updates.
Market watchers predict only moderate sales growth for BlackBerry
through 2023.
Brian Rhodes, IHS Markit's manager for connected cars and vehicle experience, said BlackBerry is positioning
itself as a key supplier to electric and
autonomous cars.
Investments there
will take time to
pay off, " but being a
strategic partner in
that space certainly
isn't bad news. "
Tech analyst
Rob Enderle thinks
Enderle:
QNX software will
Automakers will
remain a top choice continue to use
for automakers in
QNX software
need of a strong,
in large part
secure platform for
because it is
car operations -
considered
and one they mainmore secure
tain control over
than that of
- even as they let
rivals.
Google move into
FILE PHOTO
infotainment with a
consumer-friendly platform that might
not be especially secure.
Fears about liability will only grow
as technology becomes more complex,
said Enderle, a consultant based in
Bend, Ore.
" What would happen if the control
system of the car was taken over and
you had multiple deaths? " he said. " I
expect that QNX will, at least for the
foreseeable future, be favoured [to prevent that] because we're talking about
a very risk-adverse market for the platform. " - ANC

Automotive News Canada - April 2021-v2

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