Jaguar Land Rover turn to BLACKBERRY for Next-Gen Infotainment

Jaguar Land Rover have partnered with Blackberry to use their QNX and Certicom technology to develop the next generation of JLR Infotainment systems.

Jaguar Land Rover’s Infotainment systems have always been a bit lacking, although the latest generation InControl Touch Pro Duo is far more competent than ever before.

But things are rapidly changing with the plethora of autonomous and safety systems fitted to cars, and cars are rapidly having to become mobile computing systems. So JLR are turning to Blackberry to make sure their next-generation infotainment software is up to the job.

The challenge for car makers is to make a system which collects and processes data locally before sending it off to the cloud for network distribution, so the car has to have a proper computing platform with a real-time embedded operating system.

So JLR are licensing Blackberry’s QNX operating system, and its Certicom cryptography security, and Blackberry is providing a team of engineers to JLR to develop the project.

The new announcement of the tie-in with Blackberry comes soon after JLR announced it’s partnering with Qualcomm too integrate 4G LTE-A WiFi and Bluetooth technology in its cars, and using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Platform to make their autonomous cars more aware of their surroundings.

John Wall, Blackberry’s QNX General Manager, said:

Connected and autonomous vehicles will react and drive based on rich data. Automakers, such as Jaguar Land Rover, are realizing they need to take an active role in defining the software architecture for their vehicles.