BlackBerry And Baidu Collaborate To Work On A New Driverless Car Software

Whilst BlackBerry is building its reputation again, it is also looking to widen its horizons by venturing into newer segments. The Canadian Multinational Company is now focusing primarily on specializing in enterprise software and the Internet of things. The company’s attempt to push into self-driving cars took a new step forward as the former smartphone maker signed a deal with Chinese internet giant Baidu Inc. to work together on automotive software.
Under the deal’s terms, Baidu Inc. will combine its Apollo autonomous open driving platform, with BlackBerry’s QNX safety operating system. It will also bundle its leading smartphone integration software for connected cars, CarLife, with BlackBerry’s QNX entertainment software. The open driving platform-Apollo, gives automakers a set of tools to design autonomous vehicles.

By integrating the BlackBerry QNX OS with the Apollo platform, we will enable carmakers to leap from prototype to production systems…

– Li Zhenya, GM Baidu’s Intelligent Driving Group
For Baidu, it’s a route to an established, automaker-friendly player in the space. Given BlackBerry existing connections, it would come in very useful as Apollo tries to gain traction in self-driving vehicles.