Who are the customers using QNX?

After 20 years in the embedded business, QNX has accumulated an impressive roster of customers: ABB, Alcatel, Centigram, Cisco, IBM, Du Pont, Eastman Kodak, Ford Motor Company, General Electric Transportation, Motorola, New York Stock Exchange, Mitsubishi, Philips, Siemens, Sony, Texaco, to name a few. These companies are using QNX for TV broadcast automation, medical instrumentation, Internet appliances, security systems, networking equipment, robotic control, in fact, I believe that all of the robots in MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab are now being built around the QNX OS.

We like to say that it's hard to go through a day without using QNX. When I get in my car and go to work here in Ottawa (and many other cities!), the traffic lights are controlled by QNX. If I buy gasoline (petrol) using my Visa credit card, a QNX-based system will process the online transaction. If I have my color film processed, its processed by a QNX-based film printer. If I drink a bottle of beer, there's a good chance the bottle has been inspected by a QNX-based system. If I turn on a light switch, the power station generating the electricity might be controlled by QNX. If I donate blood platelets, chances are the blood-collection machine runs on QNX. The same is true if I need kidney dialysis. If I turn on my television, the programs I watch are often controlled by a QNX-based broadcast automation system. In fact, some TVs even have QNX built in, so users can access the Web directly from their TV.

In short, most people are QNX users without even knowing it!

What are the future plans of QNX?

Wow, that's a pretty big question. Obviously, we will continue to help grow our developer community through vehicles such as the QNX Developers Network and through making more QNX technology available through our source code repository.

We will also continue to enhance our technology to address the massive scalability and high-availability demands of our netcomm customers (i.e. OEMs building high-end switches, routers, etc.). Also, we'll continue to partner with protocol vendors such as NetPlane, IP Infusion, and Trillium, who specialize in providing stacks for netcomm OEMs.

In addition, we're working very aggressively at providing QNX developers with an expanded toolset. We recently announced alliances with AMC (CodeTest in-circuit tools) and MetaWare (IDE, compiler, debugger). more such announcements are in the offing for the near future.