RIM – BB10 True End-Game is QNX & NOC!

Thank you one & all for stopping by.

We’ve all heard the haters, analysts, and fanboys of other platforms all shoot down RIM and the BlackBerry platform every chance they get! Is it to short the stock (buy low and sell high), or just because they believe a Canadian company no longer deserves a second chance at success or opportunity?!

Analysts ALL have conclusively – on a global scale – deduced RIM has no real future; even Gartner themselves believe RIM will not exists in less than 20 months (I’ve personally spoke to a Gartner mobile analyst in July 2012 at a corporate event).

These naysayers to RIM & BB10’s success all agree that RIM’s end game is the make a break launch of BB10. Think about that for a second … a one day event for a launch of a product is the make a break, not a full quarter of sales, partnerships, application debuts, nor collaborations like all other platforms have had to earn in several months, even several quarters after launch. Last time I checked – RIM is a global company not a one nation sales company. The end game is NOT BB10’s success alone.

Over the next 23 days you’ll see RIM’s marketing machine kick into high gear! You’re already seeing BBJam events, hackathons, web featurettes (Inside/Developer/Business BlackBerry Blogs), etc show off what exactly BB10 can do, and how it can make your mobile experience that much easier and so much more sweeter than the competition.

Let’s look at QNX for some background information, before we understand where RIM is REALLY going.

Some still are not sure why RIM chose to purchase QNX just over a 1.5yrs ago. To them I say do a little research. QNX is a true, real-time OS! But real-life benefits does QNX offer us? Most people do not see QNX let alone know it exists until RIM started using it in press releases about BB10.

QNX software is used in embedded systems all around us – yet its not limited to embedded systems. Automobile (cars & trucks) CPU’s and infotainment applications,medical devices, nuclear reactors/management systems, parking meters, credit card machines, ticket booths and much more which I’ll get to shortly.

QNX Customers: include … Acura, AdTran, AECL, Audi, BMW, BTI Photonics, Caterpillar, Chrysler, Ciena, Cisco Systems, Daewoo, DragonWave, Emerson Process Management, Fortna, General Electric, GM (On-Star is based on QNX so you know how QNX works with internet/intranet connecitivty in the mobile space!) Hyundai, Infinera, Intalysis, JDSU WaveReady, Kieback & Peter, Land Rover, Novar/Honeywell, Porsche, Precitech, Renault, Samsung, Saab (their still a company??), Tridium, and the US Postal Service.

QNX-in-Education Program: For academic faculty (RIM can easily jump into the education space for K12 Education. Recall Unisys ICON; yup Ontario Education system’s own computer design.)

QNX automotive software stack:

QNX Ecosystem within the cars and what it works with:

What is more interesting is somewhere else that we see QNX being utilized – where its not just the kernel with various UI overlays but seeing its networking stack being used in such a secure manner. Mission Critical Defense Market – yes the military uses QNX …

Organizations such as the US Army, NASA, BAE Systems, Harris, Lockheed Martin, Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and Boeing have engaged with QNX Software Systems on a wide range of projects that share the same demanding requirements. Examples these mission critical systems include:

• Unmanned aircraft control systems
• Acoustic sensors for tracking tank movements
• JTRS wireless military radios
• High-capacity data radios
• Autonomous underwater vehicles
• Guidance systems for anti-tank weapons
• Embedded controller for aerospace applications
• Wearable GPS/communication systems for ground troops
• Transponder landing systems
• Military weather satellite test beds

I’ll bet you thought this stuff was only available in PS3/XBox games like Modern Warfare and the like … we’ll its been there in testing or in the real military warfare for years! It is in this type of environment, engaged use that you understand just how robust, reliable, how easily it is to augment and build upon while remaining robust, and the networking stack of how QNX really works where the worth is!!

BB10 is just the first plan in RIM’s end-game in this mobile chess board. RIM’s NOC (Network Operations Centre) has been secretly overhauled running QNX within their infrastructure (not just using Cisco ASA’s and other switching equipment). BB10 runs on QNX Micro-Kernel OS, yet QNX is not just for their BB10 OS and devices, but mostly for their M2M (Machine to Machine) strategy.

Thorsten Heins has already stated that RIM …

“We believe in mobile computing, not just mobile phones. QNX taught us a lot about cars, but we also asked, what does it mean for other domains? For example, it can be the mobile computing system to manage an energy grid. It is for more than just BlackBerry 10.

I want us to be the company that manages all mobile computing end points, whether in a phone or car, across the data network globally. Today we are connecting 654 carriers, and our system is being used to carry data, reliably, across these networks.

That’s the vision for the company. I want to take it into the mobile computing space and be clear leader in that space.”

source: http://www.marklives.com/wordpress/2012/10/thorsten-heins-interview-pt-2-secrets-of-blackberry-10/

RIM is interested in the Machine to Machine business – THIS my friends is the end-game for RIM!

This is the secure, reliable connectivity layer for mobile computing that sits on top of carrier networks. They can run their own services across it, but the  secure layer on top of this, globally, will come from us.

Think of a car manufacturer that sells cars globally, and needs to address all in-car computers from a certain series, and get a message out, like ‘Put the car in the garage for the next 24 hours because we are giving it a big software update’. How many vehicle recalls do you see these days? Imagine the time and cost that can be saved if we can provide telemetry data from all these cars, on a  globally connected system, and with the endpoints managed for reliability and security.

There is so much to do right now – it is overwhelming in terms of priorities. RIM needs to figure out where to be the enabler, and where to utilise our own servers. But the opportunity is huge: mobile computing, end-point management, API’s created to add sensors to devices, using the mobile data network for distribution – basically any vertical application where we think we have a play, and where we can use our push and compression services.

Smartphones and tablets part of it, but they are not the only purpose of the company.

Other blogs have already pointed out to RIM’s potential future showing off ‘Enterprising Minds’ look at using QNX – I’ve already done this on December 30, 2012 in my post “QNX – Imagined: Your car in the not-so-distant future“. Now you understand what RIM’s real goal is … if you think Google is the end all and be all of internet search, think of RIM’s NOC+QNX as the end all and be all of Machine to Machine business! Oracle, VMWare and many others are scrambling to match this.

Goodnight all and have a pleasant, productive and interesting work week while watching the news and tweets of CES2013.