In an effort to speed up the deployment of connected and autonomous vehicle technology for automotive OEMs and suppliers, Blackberry Ltd. has announced that it’s expanding its partnership with LG Electronics Inc.
“BlackBerry QNX has been our long-term, reliable partner for more than a decade, providing high performance, secure and trusted mission-critical software solutions that have helped LG delivered millions of high-quality systems to the world’s automakers,” said Hwang Won-yong, the head of audio, video, navigation, and cluster engineering for LG’s Vehicle Component Solutions Company. “We are pleased to further expand and strengthen our partnership with BlackBerry QNX, using its innovative solutions in the next generation of connected and autonomous vehicle technologies including the future of in-vehicle infotainment systems.”
Under the expanded agreement, LG will be leveraging software and services from Blackberry QNX to aid in the development of the next generation of digital consolidated cockpits. They will reportedly include infotainment systems, digital instrument clusters, and telematics systems.
The QNX software being provided to LG will include QNX Software Development Platform (SDP 7.0), QNX OS for Safety, QNX Hypervisor, QNX acoustics middleware, QNX SDK for apps and media, as well as professional engineering services for system-level integration, performance optimization, and solution validation.
The agreement was announced the same day of Blackberry’s FY’20 Q1 earnings analyst call, which among other things, detailed Blackberry’s year-over-year non-GAAP revenue growth for IoT that’s expected to sit somewhere between 12 per cent and 16 per cent.
John Chen, executive chairman and chief executive officer for Blackberry, said during the call that customers can expect the release of over 30 new secure communication products and services this year.