BlackBerry Staged a Comeback by Winning over Car Companies
Once a dominant smartphone maker, BlackBerry reinvented itself as QNX, a software provider for automotive systems. By securing deals with car companies for infotainment and safety-critical operating systems, the company staged a quiet but profitable comeback focused on the automotive industry.
Background
BlackBerry was best known for its 2000s-era smartphones (the iconic keyboard phone that lost to Apple/Android). After that business collapsed around 2016, most assumed the company was dead. But BlackBerry survived by pivoting to QNX, a real-time operating system it had acquired in 2010. QNX now runs inside over 255 million vehicles worldwide — powering infotainment, digital instrument clusters, and advanced driver-assistance systems for automakers like BMW, Ford, and Volkswagen. This article explains how BlackBerry transformed from a consumer phone maker into a behind-the-scenes software supplier for the auto industry, and why car companies (wary of giving too much control to Google or Apple) trust QNX for its reliability, security, and licensing model.