BlackBerry has announced another quarter of losses, and chances are, this will continue for more quarters before things iron out. However, company CEO John Chen is looking to bring BlackBerry out of the dust and into the coming future of connected cars.
Chen says he expects BlackBerry to break even for the next quarter, the first time ever since the company exited the smartphone market where non-business consumers are concerned. BlackBerry made it known its intentions to walk away from the market recently when it licensed the brand to the Chinese company, TCL.
For those who have been unaware of what's going on, TCL is the company that manufactured the last two BlackBerry devices, so it would make sense for Chen and friends to decide to give the company the license to bring future handsets to market.
Given the success of the QNX Software System, which was acquired by BlackBerry back in 2010, the company can look to future cars to bring in some well-needed revenue. The software is one of the most used automotive software, and as cars become more connected and digitalized, we expect BlackBerry to push forward in a huge way to carve out a big piece of the market for itself.
Powering The Next Generation Of Self-Driving Cars
So far, QNX can be found in more than 60 million cars from around the world, according to BlackBerry. Because of this, the company wants to leverage its position to make sure QNX is the central operating system of self-driving cars whenever they take off and become the next must-have piece of tech.
One of the steps in making this a possibility is creating a QNX vehicle researcher base in Canada. This is exactly what BlackBerry aims to do in a bid to make Canada a big player in autonomous vehicle research.
The BlackBerry QNX Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Centre was announced on Dec. 19 by BlackBerry CEO and the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.
"With the opening of its innovation center in Ottawa, BlackBerry is helping to establish our country as the global leader in software and security for connected car and autonomous vehicle development," said Trudeau in a statement.
BlackBerry aims to hire local engineers to staff the facility, a move that could potentially deliver hundreds of new job openings for eager professionals.
Will BlackBerry Manufacture Its Own Self-Driving Car?
The company did not say, but chances are, if QNX takes off in the self-driving car market, then we could see the company create its own vehicle for the sake of not relying too much on vehicle manufacturers for most of its revenue.
