Submitted by Well, I have to admit I didn’t see this one coming. Not too long ago, QNX Software Systems was acquired by Harman International (Harman/Kardon and JBL), and now, six years later, the embedded software specialist has been bought by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. Interesting acquisition.
I have a personal interest in QNX from back in the day when I used to run it as my main operating system (that was a long time ago, though). In fact, we can even dig up this old-school article that I wrote back when I wasn’t even on the OSNews team. Yes, such a time existed (it feels like a lifetime ago).
Anyway, what’s RIM going to do with one of the leading embedded software specialists, a Canadian company with a pedigree dating back to 1980? Well, aren’t we lucky – RIM’s president and co-CEO is quoted in the press release, and he pretty much sums it all up.
“RIM is excited about the planned acquisition of QNX Software Systems and we look forward to ongoing collaboration between Harman, QNX and RIM to further integrate and enhance the user experience between smartphones and in-vehicle audio and infotainment systems,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at RIM, “In addition to our interests in expanding the opportunities for QNX in the automotive sector and other markets, we believe the planned acquisition of QNX will also bring other value to RIM in terms of supporting certain unannounced product plans for intelligent peripherals, adding valuable intellectual property to RIM’s portfolio and providing long-term synergies for the companies based on the significant and complementary OS expertise that exists within the RIM and QNX teams today.”
QNX is doing very well in the automotive world. Currently, QNX is licensed for in-car infotainment systems in over 17 million vehicles, which is a 130% increase over 2008. More than 200 car models from Acura, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Ford, GMC, Infiniti, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover, Mazda, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen ship with QNX software powering the in-car systems.
“Like Harman, RIM shares our passion for innovation and reliability, so we are absolutely thrilled with this opportunity,” said Dan Dodge, CEO, QNX Software Systems, “Moreover, RIM will give us the best of all possible mandates: to continue on our innovation path and to increase investment in our core products, professional services, and go-to-market channels. This is a great time to be a QNX customer, as we focus on collaborating with RIM to create an even more exciting platform for the next generation of connected and embedded devices.”
Interesting and all, but let’s not forget that little intellectual property part RIM’s Lazaridis said. As we are all aware of, the mobile phone business is embroiled in a whole boatload of lawsuits, and while RIM has managed to stay out of the high-profile ones so far, that won’t be the case forever. Buying a software company with 30 years of intellectual property behind it – IP that covers operating systems, development tools, and probably a lot of other stuff – seems like a very smart move to me. If Apple or Nokia ever get trigger-happy towards RIM, I’m sure QNX can pull a sizeable number of patents out of its hat Nokia and/or Apple (potentially) infringe upon.
Or maybe RIM just throws an GUI over QNX and uses it as a operating system for phones and tablets.
It will be nice to see QNX used in some other fields.
I am not a OS expert, but I thought real time operating systems and general purpose os are completely different beasts. something about trade offs between deterministic response time vs throughput?
Ahh, but a phone OS is not exactly a “general purpose” OS. Phones and other portable devices can benefit greatly from features found in realtime OSes. From my own experience, BlackBerry phones in particular need some fresh blood. I played around with the QNX Neutrino desktop OS several years back and I was impressed; from what I’ve read of the QNX OS itself, it is highly adaptable and customizable enough to fit nearly any situation.
What to do with QNX
1) Replace current Blackberry OS with QNX (like the previous poster said).
2) Blackberry should integrate with the car system.
a) Automatic switch to hands free mode if in car.
b) Use car speakers for phone.
c) Use car microphone for phone.
d) Use steering wheel/dashboard controls to operate the phone.
e) Allow the phone to replace the key & remote control.
f) Allow syncing of music libraries between the phone and car.
g) Allow the car to use the phone as an access point to the internet (update navigation system, software updates, etc.)
OS Wars – The Next Generation
This is a shot accross the bow of Google and Apple. Consider the major mobile OS choices today:
1. iPhone OS
– one vendor who competes with RIM
2. Android
– multiple vendors, no proprietary control
3. MeeGe/Maemo/Minimo – non-Android Linux
– multiple vendors, no proprietary control
4. Windows Mobile
– either partner closely with MS and get screwed later or give up any kind of platform control
(PalmOS, Symbian, etc. are all on the way out, so forget them.)
You can now add one to that list: QNX. RIM is certainly looking for a way to escaping the aging blackberry OS with something that has a chance of competing with the heavy hitters AND controlling its own destiny.
So now Apple is IBM, Google is MS/DR/etc. DOS, Maemo is Linux (well, duh) and Microsoft is the Catholic church. Interesting times, indeed.
The combination of my subject line and your user name make for a hilarious double take. I laughed.
🙂
I can’t comment on the 80’s … but the nineties were were the best times in pc’s. But I don’t think I wanna relive Mandrake’s gcc compiler f-ups moving from 8 to 9.
Aah.. the sweet sounds of the analogue modem 🙂
i hope it’s a joke?
symbian is number 1 in the world…. in the us market is not the same thing….
For USA
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/4/comScore…
Minimo was the precursor to Firefox Mobile and not an operating system.
Quite right, I was thinking Moblin and typed the wrong thing.
This could be very good or very bad. This will allow QNX to focus more on the OS aspect of things which will be nice.
I hope RIM does for QNX what Nokia has done with QT.
I think this is more on the good end. The two companies should be fairly symbiotic.
RIM has always struck me as a very focused and smart company. I think they’ve realized they need to move away from Java, and what better way then to use an OS built for limited devices.
Hahahaha! Seriously? You have obviously never used a Suckberry.
i had a black berry curve personally, but i also used ot manage a big BES server for one of the companies i worked out. I hated black berry phones to no end, had issues witht htme all the time.
So now can I really see something nice on the GUI end of blackberry. And QNX is one heck of an RTOS. So maybe they will get all the things right now.
Yeah, just like the vast improvements we saw when Palm bought BeOS.
Sadly you are so right on the spot with this history lesson. The OS will not save a sinking/sank ship, only moving to another OS that has a fresh start. Someone once said, its easier to give birth than resurrect the dead.
In some projects I’ve been thrown shit legacy code. Redoing one part from spaghetti crap to clean code can have an amazing effect on the rest of the code. A start from scratch is not always a magic pill but is the thing funniest for the programmers so they always suggest that.
I don’t want to imagine what horror MacOS 9 was but I can imagine how much easier it must have been to get out of the pit with a solid unix kernel in the bottom and some likeable Next libs.
This QNX thing must not necessarily go down the drain. It could be good.
But the problem with the BeOS buy out there was a huge amount of work that needed to be done not only in the areas where it was week (networking stack etc) but also the fact it wasn’t mature platform that supported other architectures besides x86 and PowerPC. QNX on the other had has over 20 years of legacy behind it, it is a mature multi-architecture operating system with a large and vibrant ecosystem ranging from software developers to hardware engineers. The two in other words are incomparable.
I, too, used QNX as my main desktop system years ago. I remember playing Quake 3 on QNX with a voodoo card. Loved the responsiveness of the system. many happy memories there. Go QNX/RIM go!
If RIM + QNX can knock Apple down a peg, I’ll be like a pig in shit. I’m sick and tired of all the media coverage Apple gets for its overpriced, underfunctional products.
qft
As I’ve always said, Apple isn’t the best, it is just that the competition sucks that makes Apple look good. The best example, how long did it take Microsoft to finally address the issue of Windows Mobile? how long did it take Palm to finally do something about their decrepit PalmOS? Apple is in the same situation that Microsoft found itself in a decade ago; a moderately good product that bet the alternatives because the alternatives were either so utterly horrible or incompetently managed by the parent company.
That won’t happen until RIM gets rid of their laughably horrible data plans.
RIM has nothing to do with data plans. Those are up to the carriers.. and yes, they are horrible.
I’ve always thought that one of the best features of QNX was the network (semi-)transparency with QNet. This could potentially be a game changer when it comes to interacting with different QNX devices, for example your car, phone and gps navigation device. The possibilities are pretty awesome. Using it as an isolated desktop would not, I think, really give you a sense of the overall awesomeness of the technology.
http://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/6.3.0SP3/neutrino/sys_arch/qnet….
Not only automotive for cars, it is also used for the ISS robot arm, for medical machines, etc.
And it is fault tolerant too. Not a small thing.
I have looks at it since years, it seems very nice and efficient work for programmers and very powerful and stable OS for users.
I’m reasonably certain the Canadarm robot arm is using QNX 2 to control it; medical machines are using QNX 4, and automotive systems are using QNX 6… these are all vastly different and complete rewrites of the QNX microkernel.
I’ve recently read a car magazine which has an article about an iPhone app and they were stating that the iPhone will replace car board computers in the future. Could be not to far from reality if you think about it.
This acquirement could be the perfect chance for both QNX holding it’s current dominance in the car market and RIM getting a perfect operating system for their mobile devices.
Personally I hope QNX can finally live on to it’s full potential.
It would be nice to see yet another microkernel OS. I hope that RIM will make own device like iPad.
btw QNX was perfect mobile OS http://stoplinux.org.ru/uploads/images/news_2010/eqip/About1.jpg
Call me cynical, but I think the true reason for the acquisition is this portion of the announcement:
…adding valuable intellectual property to RIM’s portfolio…
QNX has some interesting patents and pending applications related to embedded systems, SMP/multi-core OS and voice processing, among others.
RIM, who admittedly has been on the losing end of more than one patent suit, has been trying to build up their patent pool for some time now. Their Nortel bid was rejected, for instance, since it was seen only as an attempt to grab their patents related to LTE (and the outstanding $2B in Canadian tax credits, of course).
RIM could really be interested in the potential QNX offers and is looking to invest in further R&D to bring the market new and marvelous things, but I have my doubts.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Palm was on their target list, as well.
“If Apple or Nokia ever get trigger-happy towards RIM, I’m sure QNX can pull a sizeable number of patents out of its hat Nokia and/or Apple (potentially) infringe upon.” Nokia and RIM has had license agreement for many years now, and it was last renew 2008. But maybe their new IP can bring down royalty expenses.