Innovating in the Cloud With AWS and BlackBerry
Amazon has 1.6 million employees, and out of all of them, I have the best job. As the AWS General Manager of Industry Products, I get to tackle "unsolvable” problems. This means I spend an incredible amount of time discussing future innovations amid rapid technological advancement — something AWS champions each day to transform the world.
I recently spoke at BlackBerry Summit 2023 in New York. The event brings thought leaders and visionaries together to discuss unlocking the potential of the digital world. We are doing exactly that in our collaboration with BlackBerry — and I’d like to explain how, and why.
Solving Unsolvable Problems
In my experience, the best problems are those that seem impossible to solve.
One such problem was the ability to make cars better by improving them over time, much like humans do as they acquire knowledge and experience. In the past, when you purchased a new vehicle, you settled on the static technology it came with. This would be the same unchanging tech and features years later, like your car was frozen in time.
Now, with software added to the equation, cars can adapt and improve, and actually get better over time. The new generation of SDVs (software-defined vehicles) have the capability to learn, and be taught to perform functions, just like any other software-centric device, including smartphones. This new variety of autos offers increasing degrees of convenience and comfort, a huge improvement over their primarily hardware-based predecessors.
However, a change this big doesn’t come about overnight. There are significant challenges related to safety, procurement, and design cycles. Achieving this level of industry transformation requires taking advantage of long-term and strategic collaborations.
BlackBerry was a natural choice for AWS in our effort to accelerate the development of SDVs. BlackBerry has the necessary experience and trust of the automotive industry.
Digital Transformation with BlackBerry and AWS
The collaboration between BlackBerry and AWS opens new avenues for digital transformation, starting with our development of BlackBerry IVY, an in-vehicle software platform. Keeping in mind the acceleration of technological innovation and adoption — and the growing amount of processing power and data collection in the cloud — BlackBerry IVY was built with the help of an API (Application Programming Interface) layer. In practical ways, this technology helps developers harness vehicle data and innovate more effectively, instead of having to write to each and every sensor type from each and every vendor, as was often the case in the past.
Unlocking the Potential of Future Technology
With BlackBerry and AWS working together, problems that seemed impossible are being solved.
The key to innovation is to be stubborn on the vision, and flexible on the path to achieving it. Together, BlackBerry and AWS are working hard and making history, by accelerating the future of the vehicles you will drive.
