Wall Street Journal Gift Article: “Once left for dead, the company is making money again with hidden software in 275 million cars. You use it every day without knowing it. John Wall has spent nearly his entire career working for the same company. And when he tells people where he works, nobody has any clue what he’s talking about. “If I tell them I work at QNX,” he said, “they don’t know what that means.” But once he explains that he technically works at the company that owns QNX, he knows exactly how they will respond: BlackBerry BB 3.53%increase; green up pointing triangle still exists? Yes, it does. And no, it doesn’t make phones. The company formerly known as Research In Motion abandoned hand-held devices a decade ago, and it feels more like a century ago when phones had clicky keyboards and everyone was obsessed with Brick Breaker. But an astonishing number of people still rely on BlackBerry—and they don’t realize it. The company’s most lucrative product is not hardware but the hidden software in 275 million cars on the road today. In fact, BlackBerry’s essential technology can be found in all sorts of unexpected places, and you wouldn’t find it even if you went looking for it.“On a car, you’ll never see QNX’s logo,” said Wall, the division’s president. “What you will see is a better experience.” He likes to think of QNX engineers as plumbers and electricians, responsible for the stuff we need and never see. In a house, it’s pipes and wiring. In a car, it’s the software underpinning safety features that we take for granted. QNX is the operating system that enables all kinds of driver assistance: collision warnings, blind-spot notifications, adaptive cruise control, pedestrian detection and steering you back into a lane when you’re drifting into trouble. “We’re the foundation,” Wall said. “Everything pretty on top wouldn’t work without a strong foundation.”

QNX’s operating system, which controls a number of safety features, is found in 275 million cars on the road. QNX That foundational software has never been so valuable. As cars become computers on wheels, QNX is trusted by the world’s largest automakers because its simple, real-time operating system is designed to never, ever fail. “The only way to make this software malfunction,” a user once raved to Fortune magazine, “is to fire a bullet into the computer running it.” With its bulletproof reputation, the software has spread to factory floors and other workplaces that value safety, precision and tech that won’t glitch. In hospitals, for example, QNX tech is embedded in surgical robots and dozens of medical devices, which means patients are regularly putting their lives in the hands of doctors, nurses—and BlackBerry. QNX has even become the foundation of a company left for dead long ago….“The BlackBerry story,” its CEO declared on that call, “is now a growth story.”