Blackberry and IVY

 A long time examiner of how automobiles, today or in a more autinomos future, will link to more sensors and the web.   Also an early user of Blackberry devices in the enterprise, before they were driven under by the iPhone.    Is Blackberry back?   What are the key apps to watch for? 

BlackBerry shares rocket upwards on AWS deal to integrate sensor data in vehicles

By Jonathan Shieber in TechCrunch

BlackBerry shares shot up in early trading on news that the company will partner with Amazon Web Services to jointly develop and market its vehicle data integration and monitoring platform, IVY.

BlackBerry stock was up 35%, or $2.11, at the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange. It’s a sign of both the potential market for smart vehicle services and the ability of Amazon businesses to boost the fortunes of businesses with its attention.

The former undisputed heavyweight of the smartphone market, BlackBerry has transformed itself into a provider of business security and information integration services, and it’s through this transformation that the company attracted the attention of Amazon’s web services business.  ... " 

End of the Blackberry

Blackberries were the first phone we issued to executives.  At their request after they saw how they could be used with their own portfolios.  And were the first that had the ability to work with mail, and later the use of 'Apps' for corporate data, which led to more concern about the security of data.  Spent lots of time considering what apps would lead to better corporate decisions  For us these were the first hand-held portable task devices.  Now it's mostly just the name that is also going away.

The end of BlackBerry phones: TCL will cease sales in August 2020
TCL's brand-name license will expire, leading to a clean, swift death.
 By Ron Amadeo in Ars Technica

BlackBerry is quitting the phone business—again. You might recall BlackBerry quit manufacturing smartphones back in 2016, but it licensed its brand name to the Chinese smartphone corporation TCL. TCL started pumping out BlackBerry-branded devices—some of which were QWERTY equipped and some of which were shameless rebadgings of existing TCL phones. TCL's Zombie BlackBerry plan apparently wasn't working too well, though, since now that's dead, too.  ... " 

Blackberry Self Drives

An expected connection, but very interesting.

BlackBerry opens self-driving and connected-vehicle R&D center

BlackBerry is adapting its QNX OS for advanced driver assist systems  .. 

BlackBerry has opened an R&D center to speed up the creation of software for self-driving vehicles and connected communications technology that allows vehicles to talk to each other and to the roadway infrastructure around them. ... "