Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - September 2019 - 27

People/Ideas

ecosystem that's going to be built for the car, I think
of Android. I think of an open environment. It can't
be Android, because Android's not safe and secure
enough that you would need for the car. But think of
that as the app environment that everything in the car
is abstracted as a set of services. So your autonomous
drive is an app, but runs on this. If there are 20 different
ecosystems, nothing will ever converge from an app
perspective. It's going to have to become like you have
in the phone. You have iOS, you have Android. People
write an Android app. It doesn't matter if it's from
Samsung or if it's from BlackBerry... it works.

Where does Blackberry fit into this?
Wall: We're the operating system, QNX is the operating

system. The way I describe it is we're the plumbers. So
we're what's under the floor, we're what's in the walls.
Kaivan Karimi: Most of the stuff that we do is not
differentiated. It's a foundation in a house. We've been
in safety-certified businesses for over 38 years in other
markets. It's a new thing in automotive. Since the mid
2000's ISO 26262, etc. This is a mission-critical system
that people's lives depend on, and unfortunately there
are bad guys out there who want to exploit it. And so
security is now paramount. That phone gets hacked,
your data goes. Somebody's car gets hacked...
Where does the infrastructure fit into this?
Karimi: If you look at the ecosystem that John's talking

about, Baidu is an example of it. There are a whole lot
of different companies that are coming and plugging
into that framework-a lot of overlaps on people who
are participating. But at the end of the day, it's one
ecosystem, one framework and we're the operating
system, we're Switzerland. We think probably three or
four of these ecosystems will get formed down the road.

Does BlackBerry want to be the OS of autonomy?
Wall: OS of, but I try not to limit it to autonomy. I

believe autonomy is very far out. I think what's more
interesting is how the car is changing to an ecosystem
platform. And that's going to happen sooner than full
autonomy. That's around the corner.

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE ENGINEERING

JLR

So the car becomes a rolling server?
Wall: It's a rolling smartphone. When I look at the

With OEMs including Ford to follow, Jaguar Land Rover now is using BlackBerry products to completely underpin new-vehicle network platforms.

It seems then that the monetization of services
would be the short-term goal for these companies?
Wall: Bingo. Because you're going from a car being a low

margin, high-liability device, car makers know there's a
ton of data in that car and a captive audience. How do
I sell them services and how do I monetize their data?
Karimi: If you look at the data on the number of
cars, there are headwinds that all OEMs are experiencing. The rideshare economy is coming. People are
keeping their cars longer, etc. So they have to transform
themselves to take advantage of this data opportunity.
They don't want to become just dumb pipes. Look at
what happened in the telco market. Operators have
turned into a pipe. So car companies are in jeopardy
of becoming the pipe unless they proactively go and
say, "No, I don't want to be just the pipe. I want to
own that customer relationship. I want to own that
experience, and I want to leverage that data as a result
of that experience."
What's the dream 'ask' of an OEM right now?
Wall: To be clear, our vision comes from the OEMs,

from talking to them and working with them. What's
really interesting is that the OEMs used to go to a
Tier-1 and say, "Hey, build me this. Here's the spec.
I'm going to hammer you until you deliver this to me."
That's not the case anymore. They may go to the Tier-1
and say build me some hardware, but I want to own
the software. It's almost a triangle relationship now. It's
OEM, Tier-1, software company. The OEMs do not
want to be locked out of owning the software, because
they know this is going to be a real differentiator. ■

September 2019 27

Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - September 2019

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