"automotive" entries

What BlackBerry is up to these days

Practically dead in smartphones, BlackBerry is dominant in the auto industry.

Here’s a surprise, via Bloomberg:

“BlackBerry’s QNX operating system, used to power its BlackBerry 10 phones, has become the technology of choice for mapping, communication and entertainment systems in cars from Ford Motor Co. to luxury German brands Porsche and BMW.”

BlackBerry acquired QNX in 2010 from Harman International, a long-time supplier to the auto industry. “Long-time supplier” is the crucial bit. As for why QNX has done well, Bloomberg explains:

“‘QNX is the standard right now,’ said Matthew Stover, an analyst at Guggenheim Partners in Boston. ‘It’s proven and people know what it is.’

A key to maintaining the lead is QNX’s track record in running safety systems, crucial in situations where a software freeze could mean a car accident.”

By the logic of Silicon Valley, that’s a disruption waiting to happen, as Google and a consortium of automakers have foreseen. But this also underscores the ways in which the market for software in heavy industry, and in physical machines in general, is different from the market for software that stays strictly virtual.

[H/T Jim Stogdill]

Four short links: 22 June 2009

Four short links: 22 June 2009

Decaying Friendships, Crowdsourced Cars, Aussie Gov 2.0, Zoomable Presentations

  1. Half of All Friends Replaced Every 7 Years — to put it another way, the half-life of friendship is 7 years. (via zephoria on delicious)
  2. Crowdsourced Car Design — an interesting approach, and I can imagine it being described as “threadless for cars”. (via timoreilly on Twitter)
  3. Australian Gov 2.0 Taskforce — The Aussies are getting their Gov 2.0 on. Check out Senator Kate Lundy’s Public Sphere event today got a lot of Twitter action.
  4. Prezi — sexy zoomable presentation creator. Keynote meets Ken Burns Effect on PCP. Nifty look from a Budapest-based startup.

Catch 22: Too Big To Fail, Too Big To Succeed

Hat in hand the U.S. Auto Industry lined up for their slice of government aid and it appears as of this posting that they will get the money they are asking for. These titans spent years hiding behind the “free market” shibboleth when convenient (the market wants gas guzzling SUV’s) and when punished by that same market we hear that…