I like to read about things I don’t understand.
Call me crazy, but its way more interesting than reading about stuff I already know a lot about. So recently I’ve been reading up on BB10 and more importantly, about the underlying QNX operating system – about which I knew very little. Probably like most folks, I had just assumed that BB10 was a long-overdue rewrite of BB’s old, obsolete O/S. Definitely cool, but a me-too thing - nothing to get terribly excited about.
However, after the 4
th or 5
th ‘techie’ article I found myself thinking - ‘Holy crap! If Blackberry can execute on this BB10/QNX thing, it’s going to be massive!’
I realized that if (a big if) Blackberry successfully ‘mass-consumerizes’ QNX via its new BB10 based smartphones (and potentially the Playbook) it could be the most disruptive and transformative advancement in mobile communications/computing technology since the advent of the Internet.
Yup - THAT big.
It’s all about QNX, and it changes everything.
Once I wrapped my brain understood what made QNX unique, the brilliance of Blackberry’s decision to base its next generation, hand-held ‘mobile computing device’ (aka smartphone) became apparent. It may rank as one of the most visionary and audacious technology plays ever made.
It all started for me when Andrew MacLeod of Blackberry Canada stated that BB10 is
“… a platform for mobile computing, and that's really the core objective of the company because that's going to define our future”. Hmm, I thought, isn’t that an interesting thing for a cell phone company executive to sa.y
Then I read Thorsten Hein on the record saying
“…soon we will give you ways to connect your mobile experience not just to other people but to the world around you. You will be in the middle of things and you will be connected to the internet of things; this is what being connected will mean in the future. We have created a platform that's able to work with other machines, to extend you beyond mobile devices to a car, to your home, to a healthcare system, to wherever you are." (Emphasis mine).
Ok, now I was intrigued. But was it just marketing hyperbole, or was there something deeper? I started to read articles about concepts like
‘real-time operating systems’ (RTOS), ‘micro kernel architecture’, ‘Machine–to–Machine’ (M2M) computing, ‘transparent distributed processing’, and the ‘Internet of Things’ (I of T). I was in deep, way over my head – but in many of these articles I kept finding references back to QNX. A coincidence?
So there
was something here – this wasn’t just an attempt by Blackberry to just catch-up with the other smartphone vendors, perhaps this was bigger – possibly a move to completely leap-frog the competition and transform the entire mobile communications and computing industry over the next decade. Now that would
very cool!
Is BB10 on QNX poised to be the world’s first successful mass deployment of an internet/wirelessly linked,
transparent distributed processing operating system into the hands of the average consumer? If so, what would that really mean? Surely the vision was more than just the ability to smoothly multi-task, video-calling with friends while playing Angry Birds at the same time!
The reality is that for 99.9% of smartphone users (today), BB 10 is really nothing more than a slick new smartphone operating system that plays catch-up and raises the BB user experience up to a level comparable with iOS, Android, etc. (some would argue well beyond). So it is not surprising that most analysis of the features and benefits of the new phones and OS never goes beyond the cosmetic level - the user interface, the hardware performance, the physical design, the available apps, etc..(Based on a quick survey of initial reviews, at this basic level of evaluation BB10 and the Z10 are doing just fine, thank-you. Whew!)
But what if BB10, the Z10, the Q10, etc. was
not the end-game, but just the means to the end – the global propagation of the world’s first inter-connected operating system for the “Internet of Things”.? Yes – that’s more like it! Total global domination!!
THAT would be a big, hairy, audacious goal truly worthy of a man like Mike Lazaridis (who also gifted $ 100 million to the Perimeter Institute to help advance quantum theory to help discover the origin of the universe and thus the meaning of life…).
So what would be so revolutionary about 10 million, 50 million, maybe someday 100+ million smartphones and tablets running QNX?
The following articles provided some good insight. These reviewers helped me understand that is not just about the handset. The article by Mary Branscombe, ZDNET
BlackBerry 10: Forget about the phone - it's the OS that really counts, opened up my eyes, than I found the article by Karl Denniger on the Market Ticker website:
How Blackberry Can Win (Big) In The Mobile World. It’s been discussed already on Crackberry. This one is very good, but it was buried deep in the reader comments that I had my true ‘aha moment’. The most enlightening observations and truly fascinating insights are found here, postings from some obviously very smart and knowledgeable technical people who also ‘get it’. Here is one excerpt:
“… consider that today your device in your pocket is limited by what fits in the device. We have things like "Dropbox" to try to get around that. Ok, now at my house I have a ****ing HUGE media and data server. I CAN get to things on it from my phone, but it's a pain in the ***….
… Contemplate a device that can access and use any resource on any other device without knowing anything special about it. A camera is just a source of image data. A data storage device streams bytes or blocks. A printer is a sink of image data. An audio output device can be anywhere -- on your phone, on the next guy's over, etc. Same for a screen, a microphone, or whatever.
We don't think of devices this way, but QNX always has. It's a result of the microkernel view of design, something that's unique.
…It's an entirely different way of thinking about how a computer works and how the pieces go together. Today, I have to worry about all this to make things work. If I want console access to my server I need to do special things with IPMI/KVM to accomplish it. For remote disk access to my home network I have to play with things like SAMBA and a VPN. I can't easily get to the webcam on my desktop machine from 5,000 miles away, because it's driven by a device driver on that computer.
All this changes with the QNX model.”
So I read on: other relevant articles/videos include:
The Future of RIM, may have very little to do with cellphones
Machine to Machine Opportunities for Investors (BNN Video) QNX: RIM's Trojan Horse RIM – BB10 True End-Game is QNX & NOC! (Read these articles and watch the video to get a deeper understanding about the potential of a hand-held device running the QNX operating system in the hands of tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of consumers, immersed in a world full of other QNX powered devices.)
After immersing myself into these and other technical articles, and extrapolating 5– 10 years down the road, I think I understand at least a little sliver of the enormous vision that people like Lazaridis and Dan Dodge (the co-creator of QNX) have for the future. If the next ‘really big thing’ in technology is the mass adoption of a world-wide, commercially viable, inter-connected transparent distributed processing platform (I call it the ‘operating system of the world’), then it looks like the
only game in town right now is Blackberry, and with the successful launch of BB10, they have begun the process of building what will be a truly massive, truly sustainable competitive advantage over any other would-be contender to the throne.
Dan had the technology, but not the means to take it to the consumer market and gain critical mass. Mike had the consumer vehicle but needed a new platform to differentiate from Apple and Google. Add smart, patient investors like Prem Watsa - who had the money - and combined, possibly - just possibly - Blackberry will change the mobile computing world as we know it.
Time will tell if Blackberry can execute. It will take a decade or longer to develop and mature the Internet of Things. It could easily become highly fragmented. Blackberry will have to partner with major consumer hardware vendors that manufacture smart devices, but at least they already have a great head-start given their dominant position in certain markets like the key automotive industry, where they already have a 60% market share. As Lazaridis said (very slyly, not wanting to show his cards at the time) when asked about the relevance of the QNX acquisition – ‘we believe a car is a great accessory for a Blackberry’. Turns out the accessory list goes way beyond just cars!
Well played, Mike - well played.
I now await the first hard evidence of the viability of QNX to operate in a consumer based, distributed computing environment. Perhaps it will be a Z10 doing something truly amazing with a car – that seems likely - or maybe it will be how well the Z10/Q10 and a BB10/QNX powered Playbook work (and play) together. Both devices from Blackberry, so who better to prove it can work? Will the Z10 O/S really be a transparent, distributed extension of the Playbook O/S, and vice-versa? Will a user be able to seamlessly access the physical assets on either device (e.g. camera, gps, etc.) without the need for a now suddenly obsolete ‘app’ to bridge? And once my phone/car/tablet starts acting as one, why not my TV, game console, elevator pass, ATM, coffee machine, thermostat? Resistance will be fultile....
If 10-15 years down the road the ‘Internet of Things’ becomes a reality, and QNX has become the operating system of the world, anyone who went long (very long) on Blackberry stock today could be shareholders of the most valuable company to ever exist.
(Full disclosure: I bought RIMM at $ 140/share...)