Deep Sound Original · The author | Chen Wenqi
On January 4, 2022, BlackBerry terminated support and service for BlackBerry 7.1 OS, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1, and earlier.
In other words, the BlackBerry officially became a brick.
Dec. 22, 2021 BlackBerry announces that it will terminate mobile phone services on January 4, 2022 Image source: Screenshot of the official website
In the era before the rise of the mobile Internet, BlackBerry, known for its security and real-time mail push, was once the first choice for business people. In 2011, the "911" incident broke out, and the U.S. communications network was paralyzed, but Vice President Cheney's BlackBerry could still be used normally, receiving real-time information about the scene of the disaster. Since then, when the US Congress is not in session due to the "911 incident", even each congressman has been equipped with a BlackBerry mobile phone. Obama was also a loyal user of BlackBerry until 2016, when he said on a television show that he had finally replaced the BlackBerry phone that had been used for 7 years and used a smartphone.
Obama is the "spokesperson" for BlackBerry Image source: Time
It is not an exaggeration to say that a BlackBerry with a full QWERTY keyboard is the "ceiling" of the feature phone. In 2006, BlackBerry once occupied 48% of the US market, and nearly 20% of the global market. In 2008, BlackBerry was worth $83 billion, making it one of Canada's most profitable companies. BlackBerry is to Canada, just nokia is to Finland, a consumer electronics brand that the nation is proud of.
BlackBerry share price changes have fallen all the way after reaching highs in 2008
The unthinking BlackBerry ushered in the killer. In 2010, Jobs launched the iPhone 4, and the mobile phone market immediately entered the era of intelligence. At this time, BlackBerry's iconic full keyboard has become the biggest burden, while smartphones bring richer content, larger screens, more convenient interactions, iOS and Android are rapidly rising, and Chinese mobile phone brands such as Huami OV have also quickly occupied a considerable market share. BlackBerry's struggle to roll out new systems and smartphones hasn't helped turn the tide.
Between 2009 and 2013, BlackBerry's mobile phone market share slipped from 42 percent to 3.5 percent. By the fourth quarter of 2016, the global BlackBerry market share had fallen to 0% (after rounding).
BlackBerry began a long goodbye. On September 28, 2016, BlackBerry officially announced that the company would stop developing and producing smartphones, and in December of the same year, BlackBerry licensed the BlackBerry brand to TCL, which was responsible for production and sales. In 2020, BlackBerry announced that TCL will stop selling BlackBerry phones from August 31. Until January 4 of this year, the Service of BlackBerry was completely discontinued.
The mobile phone business is not working, and BlackBerry has not put eggs in one basket, and has long begun to transform. Now BlackBerry is a To B software company, in the field of smart cars, automatic driving, has been indispensable BlackBerry.
Also in 2010, BlackBerry acquired QNX, a Canadian software company whose core product was a real-time operating system, initially used in industrial control systems. Today, QNX may be one of BlackBerry's greatest assets.
QNX's automotive operating system and software solutions cover automotive instrument clusters, central control infotainment systems, telematics systems, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), acoustic management platforms (AMP), control gateways, and vehicle-to-outside information exchange technology (V2X).
Automakers, including Audi, Mercedes-Benz, volvo, etc., are equipped with QNX systems as the underlying basic support. For example, Baidu's self-driving platform Apollo, whose operating system is BlackBerry QNX. According to Strategy Analytics, more than 195 million cars worldwide are now equipped with BlackBerry QNX basic software. In the automotive operating system market, QNX operating system occupies more than 50% of the market share, and in the vehicle-controlled autonomous driving operating system market, QNX operating system occupies a market share of up to 90%.
The BlackBerry QNX system is the underlying operating system for many smart cars, including Baidu's Apollo autonomous driving platform Image source: Baidu
QNX technology is also used in Cisco routers, general-purpose transportation equipment, Siemens industrial automation systems, covering automotive, defense, railway, medical and other fields.
BlackBerry reported total revenue of $184 million for the third fiscal quarter of fiscal 2022 (ending November 30, 2021). Revenue from cybersecurity was $128 million with a gross margin of 59 percent; IoT revenue was $43 million with a gross margin of 81 percent; and licensing and other revenue was $13 million, with a gross margin of 54 percent.
QNX's current results confirm that the end of a BlackBerry is not the same as the end of BlackBerry.
Regarding Apple's car, the true and false reports and rumors have not been broken. Bloomberg has reported that Apple has opened a new office in QNX's campus to develop automotive operating systems and has recruited a group of people from QNX. This time, whether BlackBerry can withstand Apple's attack is still unknown.