After losing the challenge against Apple and Samsung in the sale of smartphones, BlackBerry now has a new sector in which it trusts to thrive and relaunch its economic activities: that of self-driving cars. The Canadian company is reorganizing to develop the software necessary to manage the information that sensors collect in autonomous vehicles, with a particular focus on cyber security and solutions to keep hackers and malicious users at bay. In this way, BlackBerry is confident of convincing car manufacturers to invest in its systems, integrating or preferring them to those of companies already active for some time such as Alphabet through its subsidiary Waymo.
For many years, BlackBerry has been synonymous with “business mobile phone”. Its highly recognizable devices – thanks to the miniature QWERTY keyboard – were in the hands of millions of employees and managers of companies around the world. Compared to traditional mobile phones, they allowed you to send emails and surf the Internet, albeit with considerable limitations and often on a limited number of sites. It is estimated that in the first few years after 2000, the network operated by BlackBerry for its email service had over 80 million subscribers. The company underestimated the arrival of Apple's iPhones and Android devices, imagining that companies would not invest in products that seemed designed for individual consumers and not for integrated management in the workplace. Thanks to the company policies of using one's personal device also to work, things went another way: in a few years BlackBerry went from a market value of around 61.7 billion dollars to 2.5 billion dollars.
In the first years of Apple and Samsung's success with their devices, BlackBerry however tried to relaunch its brand by designing and selling new smartphones, in some cases without the classic physical keyboard and more like a common Android phone. In 2010, the Canadian company acquired the QNX operating system from Harman International Industries, with the aim of improving the functioning of its BB10 platform and offering a more complete product to companies, with smartphones that could better integrate with their systems and offer higher levels of security.
The idea was to offer smartphones that had an operating system clearly divided into two parts: on the one hand the functionalities for work, with access to documents and other resources of your company, and on the other an environment for personal use with apps. , games and the rest. Despite large investments and a relaunch accompanied by a large marketing campaign, the project failed and BlackBerry sold very few new smartphones, eventually necessitating heavy internal restructuring, staff cuts and finally the almost complete abandonment of the cell phone sector, where the 'company had excelled for years.
However, QNX still remains today one of BlackBerry's most important assets and, in the company's plans, will be the basis of the new systems for autonomous driving. In Ottawa, the capital of Canada, the QNX division works in a three-story building on the outskirts of the city. In addition to dealing with the software, the engineers experiment with sensors and various other components for cars, in environments a little more informal than usual by BlackBerry standards.
For now, analysts are cautious about the new initiative, also because the autonomous driving sector has become quite crowded in recent years. After Google, which later formed Waymo, there are numerous other companies working on artificial intelligence systems for self-driving cars. Uber already has an active experimental fleet and is investing heavily in self-driving technologies, convinced that it is the future for its rental car service. Tesla, the car manufacturer of Elon Musk, has long been delivering its electric vehicles with an autopilot that allows you to not have to touch the steering wheel while traveling, as long as the driver is ready to intervene in the event of an anomalous behavior of the software. Waymo and Tesla use their own operating systems and IT solutions, but there are many other auto companies that have recently started designing cars that drive themselves, with no facilities and skills to even take care of the software. And this is where BlackBerry would like to make a difference.
In recent months, the company has initiated initial contacts – and in some cases has even entered into agreements – with various car manufacturers. According to the Wall Street Journal, companies involved include Ford, General Motors and Jaguar Land Rover. BlackBerry has also launched a marketing campaign in Silicon Valley and Detroit, the city of the main US car manufacturers, to get noticed and above all to make known its new products related to QNX. The company's CEO, John Chen, is also planning a presentation next January at the North American International Auto Show, one of the most important North American auto shows that is held in Detroit.
BlackBerry is working to have QNX collect and interpret the signals sent by the onboard sensors of self-driving cars, coordinating the management of the other systems that make the vehicle move. Compared to others, the company says it can guarantee better IT security systems, an issue that has been under discussion for some time. Self-driving cars will be connected to the Internet and therefore need reliable solutions to prevent viruses, malicious software or the direct intervention of an attacker from causing a disaster.
Ever since BlackBerry began promoting its interest in autonomous driving more explicitly, investors have given it some more attention. Compared to last year, the company's stock value increased by 52 percent. This condition is making it more attractive to sell the majority stakes in BlackBerry, which are held by Primecap Management Corp. of Pasadena (California) and Fairfax Financial Holdings of Toronto (Canada). They could decide to sell, eventually returning an investment that a few years ago seemed destined to lead nowhere. Together, the two investors hold around a quarter of BlackBerry's shares.
However, analysts are still very cautious in making predictions about BlackBerry's future. The company has practically emerged from an extremely competitive sector such as that of smartphones to slip into another which, on balance, is just as difficult and full of fierce competitors. Initial deals with automakers look encouraging, but BlackBerry's ability to compete with companies with extensive industry experience, such as Waymo, is yet to be demonstrated.
