Originally Posted by
Troy Tiscareno But BB10 isn't merely a UI. QNX doesn't have by itself ANY smartphone-related functionality except for the most basic file structure. It doesn't support making phone calls, cellular networking, WiFi, BlueTooth, NFC, Cameras, GPS, etc. etc. All of that was newly created for BB10, and is unique to BB10. Further, all of the supporting services were unique to BB10 (app development environments, APIs, BB World, Blend, etc.).
The base of QNX is quite small and quite limited (by design - it's intended to be a lightweight base upon which to build custom embedded systems). Again, I'm not in any way disparaging it - it's a market leader for a reason - I'm just trying to make it clear for those who believe that BB10 is QNX with a UI slapped on top of it - that massively underestimates the work and functionality that was created for BB10 and overestimates what stock QNX can do out of the box.
Likewise, BB has been creating lots of brand-new functionality on top of QNX for use in self-driving cars, and I'm sure the Radar was built on QNX but also that the bulk of that code was brand new and is specific to Radar.
BB's stock is going up because the market sees real value in these products. Sure, there is competition, but these applications have always been more towards BB's niche than dealing with the consumer market and having to please millions of individual customers. BB has always been better focusing on a far smaller number of large customers, and on focusing on the needs of enterprise-level businesses rather than individual consumers. Finally, the window of opportunity is still open for these new lines of business, while the window for success in the smartphone platform effectively closed in 2009, even if it took a couple more years before that fact became crystal clear.
BB has plenty of potential today - it's just that their potential exists in lines of business that people here don't care about, because they aren't consumer products.