RIM Buys QNX to Tie Phones to Cars
Research in Motion said Friday that it had signed a deal with Harman International to acquire its QNX Software Systems unit to help tie its BlackBerry smartphones to car navigation systems.
Research in Motion said Friday that it had signed a deal with Harman International to acquire its QNX Software Systems unit to help tie its BlackBerry smartphones to car navigation systems.
Terms of the deal were not announced. It is expected to close within 30 to 45 days if it passes regulatory approvals.
RIM said it would use the technology in "intelligent peripherals" as well as tie its BlackBerry smartphone closer to in-dash navigation systems.
"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," said Mike Lazaridis, RIM's president and co-chief executive at RIM.
QNX designs a real-time embedded OS, that it has tied to ARM, MIPS, PowerPC and other processors and embedded designs.
"The car is going to become the first-class citizen of the cloud, where inside the car you're going to have access to all the conected media, all the social services that are out there, and it will truly revolutionize the driving experience, the experience of the automotive makers making those cars, the ecosystem of people that are going to make applications for those cars," said Dan Dodge, the chief executive of QNX, in a recent video made with Alcatel-Lucent to retrofit a Toyota car with a cloud-connected entertainment system networked via the wireless LTE standard. "It's probably one of the most exciting times in automotive history."