The Once-Ubiquitous BlackBerry Phone Still Exists, Transformed into This

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Between 2000 and the 2010s, BlackBerry was well-known in many countries. It was even called the phone of a million devotees, due to the sheer number of users at that time.

As time passed, the phone known as BB began to almost disappear. Most phone brands now have designs that have shifted to full-display, no longer using keyboards like BlackBerry did back then.

However, John Wall, who once led BlackBerry, said his company never truly died. He stated that he is still technically working for the same company.

“If I tell them that I work at QNX, they don’t know what that means,” said Wall, who is now president of QNX, quoted from the Wall Street Journal on Saturday (3/5/2026).

QNX itself is a company owned by BlackBerry. The difference is that the company no longer produces phones.

Now the company has shifted to becoming a producer of software embedded in 275 million cars. “In cars, you won’t see the QNX logo. What you see is a better experience,” he said.

The operating system produced by QNX protects car drivers. Some features within it include collision warnings, blind spot notifications, adaptive cruise control, pedestrian detection, and steering towards the correct lane when heading to a dangerous area.

“We are the foundation. All the beautiful things on top can’t succeed without a strong foundation,” he explained.

Not just cars, QNX software is also embedded in other industries. For example, surgical robots and dozens of medical devices in hospitals.

That’s where QNX revives BlackBerry, which was once dead. Half of BlackBerry’s revenue comes from that business unit.

QNX was founded in 1980 and acquired in 2010 by BlackBerry. When many engineers moved to the parent company to build mobile operating systems, Wall, who has worked since the 1990s, remained at QNX.

His team has been trying to develop software for cars since then. From being ignored, to eventually gaining major attention from Silicon Valley.