Breaking away from their handset manufacturing background, Blackberry have signed a deal with Ford that will see them provide software for their future cars.
Ford’s connected car initiative
The automaker’s connected cars already contain Blackberry’s QNX software, but this latest agreement will see Blackberry embedding its tech deeper into Ford Motors vehicles. Ford has been rigorous in sticking to their proposed plan of having 100,000 self-driving cars taxis on the road by 2021, along with having them up for public sale by 2025, and the well-known phone manufacturer will now be a part of these plans.
Blackberry fights off Microsoft for deal
Blackberry managed to fight off Microsoft to secure this contract with the automobile manufacturer, which will hopefully see the company turn itself around after losing the majority of its stake in the mobile phone market. This move will fulfil Blackberry CEO, John Chen’s vision to rebrand the company as an innovative enterprise-software company.
A dedicated team of engineers will begin working on the software for the upcoming connected car release, and the QNX software already used in Ford’s entertainment systems has been certified for use in driverless vehicles and their active safety systems.
The efforts by Ford and Blackberry may pay off, but companies like Google, Baidu and Mercedes-Benz have plans to put self-driving vehicles on the road a year before Ford states theirs will be ready. Although, this deal could provide further deals for Blackberry will other manufacturers.
Edited from sources by Jordan Platt.
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