Thank You to QNX Partners for a Wonderful CES

By Romain Saha
Strategic Alliances Manager
Blackberry QNX

It has been a few weeks since the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show. As with previous shows, BlackBerry QNX displayed industry-leading automotive technology in its booth. QNX  unveiled not one, but two concept cars - a Jaguar XJ, which showcased a unified cockpit experience, and a self-driving Lincoln MKZ, both of which were well-received by customers and media alike.

But we could not have reached this stage alone.

What may not be obvious is the incredible investment BlackBerry QNX and our ecosystem make in developing advanced technology demonstrations. In some cases, ecosystem partners work alongside BlackBerry QNX as key contributors. In other cases, ecosystem partners develop independent demonstrations integrating their technology along with QNX’s technology.

In every case, our partners’ dedication and hard work to turn ideas into reality is greatly appreciated.

At CES, for example, Livio, Qualcomm, Renesas, and Texas Instruments (TI), Polysync, University of Waterloo all helped showcase QNX’s technology innovations.

Livio hosted a demo of SmartDeviceLink (SDL) running on the QNX Platform for Infotainment. Pioneered by Ford, SDL allows seamless connectivity between smart phones and infotainment systems. In their private suite, TI demonstrated not one, but two instances of the QNX Platform for Infotainment running on their processor hardware. 

Meanwhile, Renesas took people for test rides in the autonomous Lincoln MKZ they developed together with BlackBerry QNX. The deep level of collaboration required to achieve this is a true testament to the partnership, which generated overwhelmingly positive feedback. The University of Waterloo and Polysync contributed valuable technology to the Lincoln MKZ.

QNX -based digital instrument clusters were also well represented at CES this year. In their concept Maserati Quattroporte, Qualcomm demonstrated a digital instrument cluster based on the soon-to-be-released 64-bit version of QNX’s OS also known as, SDP 7.0.

Our User Interface partners had great demos. At the Luxor hotel, DiSTI Corporation assembled an impressive collection of demos, with clusters running on Intel, Renesas and TI silicon. DiSTI teamed with CoreAVI to demonstrate a top-to-bottom BlackBerry QNX based safety critical cluster.

Rightware Kanzi was used in the digital cluster of the QNX’s Jaguar XJ concept car. This demonstration also displayed Kanzi Connect, which allowed drivers to personalize their dashboard interface in real-time using their smartphone.

CES 2017 was a tremendous success for BlackBerry QNX, thanks in no small part to the dedication of our partner ecosystem. Our partners help us offer more complete systems to customers and we thank them for their steadfast and incredible support. It is through such relationships that we can expand our ecosystem to the benefit of the industry.