00:00It's surprising. A lot of people hear BlackBerry and say, that company is still around. But as a car guy, I realize you're putting software into ECUs, into infotainment, into advanced driver assistance systems. Tell us how that business is growing.
00:13Yeah. No, thanks for having me on the program, Matt. And yeah, we're actually up to 275 million vehicles that we power around the world with our real-time operating system. We're really pleased with the announcement with BMW, where we're taking that relationship to another level.
00:32And we're powering that with our advanced Ally Core capability. And this is an integrated kind of approach to really bringing together different layers of the stack.
00:45So our whole foundational vehicle software platform is powering everything that we do with BMW. And it seeks to really simplify the cumbersome and complex process of integrating software.
01:03So our partners, like BMW, can focus more on delivering customer-facing applications that can build brand loyalty and differentiation.
01:14So that's the underpinning of everything that we're doing in the QNX, not only with BMW, but with all the other major OEMs around the world.
01:24You know, as an American, I think of the major OEMs as like BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Ford, GM.
01:31But of course, in China, there's a massive amount of EVs being powered by companies that most Americans have never even heard of.
01:40How does that market look? How does the TAM in China look to you as the CEO of a Western company?
01:48Yeah, that's one of, honestly, Matt, it's one of our fastest growing markets around the world.
01:53As you said, the explosion of EV, the explosion of technology that's going into these vehicles, some of them have almost up to 500 million lines of code that are going in there.
02:04And an operating system like QNX with the software-defined capabilities, the safety certifications, which are increasingly becoming more important in a market like China, positions us really well for that to be a growth market for us in the future.
02:20So is it helpful when, you know, the Europeans collaborate with the Chinese or when the Canadians make a deal with the Chinese and they set up shop outside of that country and in places where you have more access to put your engineers?
02:36It absolutely is. You know, the whole industry is really collaborating together.
02:40For instance, there's a company, a partner of ours in Germany, Vector, who's right at the forefront of us delivering this ally core solution.
02:52So you have a Canadian company, a German systems integration company supporting OEMs in China, Korea, Japan, obviously Germany and the U.S.
03:03So it's a collaborative effort. Together is power. All of the industry is really needs to come together and work harder as more advanced technology goes into the car.
03:14We're looking at a slate of your partners, AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, and you put the software layer into this stack.
03:21Are you feeling margin pressure from the price increases for the hardware there?
03:27We play on the software side alone. So the margin pressure on us.
03:33I mean, obviously, OEMs are big, sophisticated companies that have large volumes that command, you know, a competitive price point.
03:42But I don't think it's the same level of pressure that maybe some of the hardware providers have.
03:48We have a deep relationship with Qualcomm, with NVIDIA, with NXP, Texas Instruments, Intel.
03:56So the entire ecosystem from the tier ones to the systems integrators to the silicon providers, we work in concert with them to deliver our real time operating system on QNX.
04:08By the way, I think about these boxes with four wheels that people buy and drive around just because I'm older.
04:17But a younger person would think about robots or at least AVs.
04:22And I know you're also in medical devices.
04:25I mean, it seems like your software can power a whole host of devices.
04:31What's most interesting to you or what's the biggest revenue driver for BlackBerry outside of automotive?
04:36Yeah, 100 percent.
04:38A lot of the work and the development that we've done in the in the auto side of the business translates very nicely to the general embedded market.
04:48You know, verticals like medical devices, railroad applications, robotics is a particularly high growth segment.
04:58These are mission critical environments where system failures have life threatening consequences.
05:07So a real time operating system like QNX is purpose built for those kinds of applications in solving those business problems.
05:18So robotics, medical instrumentation, industrial automation.
05:22We think that's the next frontier of growth for us in this industry.
05:26What's your pitch to investors, John, because the stock has languished.
05:32I mean, it's just gone nowhere really for the past couple of years, even with your dominance in industry in the auto industry and growth and others.
05:42So how do you how do you sell the stock to investors?
05:46Yeah, we think we're really poised for growth in the future.
05:49Matt, it was one of these transformation that we underwent over the last couple of years.
05:56We divested subscale and unprofitable business.
06:00We simplified our operations by reducing layers and empowering the workforce and removing bureaucracies that enabled us last year to get back to profitability and generating cash.
06:13Now we're really focusing on accelerating our growth into 2026.
06:18And as we accelerate our growth in the coming years, I think that's really when the stock is poised for a breakout.
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