BlackBerry Ltd on Monday downplayed news that Toyota Motor would embrace rival software for its future car consoles, saying it was more concentrated on the faster-growing market for autonomous owning technology.
BlackBerry shares dropped 0.2% Tuesday after Toyota Motor revealed that it is transitioning away from the company’s technology concerning the consoles in its Camry sedans.
Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), a collective effort of some 100 innovation companies and automakers, stated recently that Toyota would start utilizing its open-source software in Entune 3.0 consoles of its 2018 Camry sedans, prior to releasing it in most of Toyota and Lexus vehicles offered in North America.
BlackBerry Chief Operating Officer Marty Beard stated in a blog posting that he anticipated AGL – along with regular Linux and Android – to take a share of the automobile infotainment market, where BlackBerry’s QNX is a dominant provider.
“None of these challenger platforms is close to displacing BlackBerry QNX in safety-critical modules, areas that are growing quicker than infotainment in the contemporary software-defined vehicle,” Beard stated.
QNX is a prominent supplier of software for consoles that provide video, mapping, hands-free calling and internet services to cars, and is pitching for more business in the race toward autonomous driving.
QNX was not Entune’s primary platform, however it did provide some peripheral infotainment software, BlackBerry spokesperson Sarah McKinney stated.
She likewise stated she was unsure whether QNX would continue to be utilized in brand-new versions of Entune 3.0.
Toyota is the first significant automaker to embrace AGL, a project began five years ago to develop standardized open-source software for the automobile market.
