While dominating the RTOS market with QNX, which has found a particularly comfortable home inside the in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) centers in automobiles, BlackBerry has decided to launch a dedicated cloud platform to bring new devices and industries into the BlackBerry ecosystem. This is the fruit of BlackBerry’s Project Ion.
Simply (or unimaginatively some might argue) called BlackBerry IoT Platform, the company showed off its capabilities via Nanthealth’s HBox – a mHealth sensor hub and relay for gathering data from deployed wearables and sensors in homes or healthcare centers. BlackBerry says its platform is aimed squarely at helping businesses build apps for IoT implementations, initially aimed at automotive and asset tracking, with healthcare and the energy sector next in line.
According to BlackBerry, its Platform combines technology from QNX with the secure network infrastructure and device lifecycle management software. Essentially, if you hook up your devices, for a fee, BlackBerry will ensure their uptime, security and provisioning.
A company that wants to deploy devices that require a global reach may well appreciate BlackBerry’s reach, given that the global BlackBerry back end currently handles approximately 35 petabytes of mobile data per month in data centers located around the world, and manages peering connections with more than 300 mobile operators and 400 partner networks worldwide.
“The BlackBerry IoT Platform blends the technologies that have enabled BlackBerry to become a leader in both the mobile data security and embedded systems industries,” said Matt Hoffman, VP of Strategy and Marketing at BlackBerry Technology Solutions. “We have built a modular, cloud-based platform that gives customers the chance to build IoT applications in a secure, efficient and scalable way. Looking ahead, we will extend the platform with other BlackBerry technologies to give developers additional control over the flow of information to devices on the network’s edge.”
Alongside the messaging core messaging service, the platform also provides data indexing, analytics and data visualization, and advanced permissions for device management. The service is offered on a modular basis, so that businesses can customize it to suit their needs. For automotive and asset tracking businesses, the service is currently free to try for six months.
In related IoT news, BlackBerry also showed off its BBM messaging service running on Android Wear, and announced that the service had gained 140m new users since it was opened up to iOS and Android. BlackBerry said 70% of monthly users use the service daily, before listing off a rather dry list of usage statistics.
BBM makes up part of BlackBerry’s software and services division, which primarily targets enterprise business. The company announced that 260 companies are currently evaluating the enterprise-grade BBM Protected service, with a further 50 evaluating the BBM Meetings app. Separately, the QNX division announced that it is now found in over 50 million vehicles’ IVI systems, with over 50% market share. Microsoft currently lies in second place, with a share in the 20% region, according to figures from IHS.
Lastly, BlackBerry announced the pricing of its two new handsets in the US, running on the AT&T network. The Classic, a reinvention of the famous BlackBerry staple design, will sell for $420 or $50 on a two-year contract, and the left-field Passport will retail for $650 or $200 on a similar contract. The phones will be available in “the near future.”
Bizarrely, the pointed corners of the Passport have been rounded off, at AT&T’s request. CEO John Chen rather glossed over the reasoning behind this, saying “AT&T wanted rounded corners. Some of us are more square. No other reason than that.” Was BlackBerry struggling that much to find a US carrier that it had to take a belt sander to its design?