Blackberry in Development Deal With Amazon Web Services

By Chris Wack

Blackberry Ltd. said Tuesday it has entered into a development deal with Amazon Web Services Inc., an Amazon.com Inc. company.

The companies are in a multiyear, global agreement to develop and market BlackBerry's Intelligent Vehicle Data Platform, IVY. BlackBerry IVY is a cloud-connected software platform that will allow auto makers to provide a consistent and secure way to read vehicle sensor data, normalize it, and create actionable insights from that data both locally in the vehicle and in the cloud.

BlackBerry said IVY could help auto makers create personalized driver and passenger experiences and improve operations of cloud-connected vehicles with new BlackBerry QNX and AWS technology. BlackBerry IVY will apply machine learning to data to generate predictive insights and inferences, making it possible for auto makers to offer in-vehicle experiences that are highly personalized and able to take action based on those insights.

BlackBerry said IVY should allow auto makers to compress the timeline to build, deploy and monetize new in-vehicle applications and connected services across multiple vehicle brands and models.

BlackBerry IVY also will make it easier for auto makers to collaborate with a wider pool of developers to accelerate creation of new offerings that deliver improved vehicle performance, reduced costs for maintenance and repairs, and added convenience. Auto makers will be able to remotely deploy and update the software from the platform's Cloud Console to continuously improve the functionality of the system.

Blackberry shares are up 46% to $8.59 in premarket trading.

Write to Chris Wack at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 01, 2020 09:41 ET (14:41 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.