As BlackBerry continues to transform its business by building a world-class team and bringing even greater focus to the company, John Chen, CEO of BlackBerry, has announced the formation of QNX Software Systems’ new Cloud business.
In this growing, connected world, it’s more important than ever to create technologies that not only connect people to people, but that connect to machines and devices for greater communication and interaction. BlackBerry and QNX have a long history of developing solutions that do just that.
Solutions that connect and support the Internet of Things, including embedded platforms, networks and devices, are at the heart of what QNX delivers. Consider this – while there are 5-billion handsets in the world that we want to connect to, there may be 500-billion devices out there that present a tremendous opportunity for an organisation with the experience and track record of QNX.
Chen has created a group within QNX that will be dedicated to bringing these solutions to market in a timely and cohesive manner. This business is being established alongside our existing organisations that serve the embedded market (including general embedded and automotive).
Alec Saunders will lead this new group as VP of the QNX Cloud business. Saunders has previous experience in helping to build BlackBerry’s dedicated developer community and growing the BlackBerry application ecosystem as VP of Developer Relations and Ecosystem Development. Alec is returning to his roots, as he previously held the VP Marketing role at QNX from 2001 to 2002.
In addition, Marty Mallick has been appointed VP, Global Alliances and Ecosystems, which combines Developer Relations with his current Business Development and BlackBerry World responsibilities. Having worked closely with Saunders on the evolution of our ecosystem, there is no better person than Mallick to continue to advance this work.
Mallick’s expertise will allow him to work with partners and developers to make BlackBerry 10 users even more productive and efficient.
These changes underscore our continued efforts to drive collaboration across BlackBerry operating units, while leveraging top internal talent to help seize emerging business opportunities. Chen will share more information about the cloud team at QNX in the coming months as their work progresses.
