BlackBerry's phones ended in two steps. In September 2016 the company said it would "end all internal hardware development" and hand phone-making to partners (BlackBerry results release, 28 Sep 2016). On 4 January 2022 it switched off the services its old phones needed, and with them reliable data, calls and texts (BlackBerry support page).
The part that stayed was QNX. Research In Motion, as BlackBerry was then called, agreed to buy it in April 2010, when it was already software used in cars (the 2010 release). Today QNX runs under car screens: digital cockpits, instrument clusters and driver-assistance computers. The company describes a hypervisor that keeps safety systems and entertainment "side by side in strongly isolated domains" (QNX Hypervisor page), and TÜV Rheinland certifies its safety version (certificate).
By Counterpoint Research's count, QNX is in more than 275 million vehicles (QNX release, 16 Dec 2025). In cars it is paid per unit: a royalty on each piece of hardware with QNX inside that a customer ships. In the year to 28 February 2026 QNX brought in 48.8% of BlackBerry's revenue (BlackBerry 10-K).
What the Short had no room for: the payer is often a supplier that builds the car's computer module, not the carmaker, and one car can hold more than one QNX unit. The Wall Street Journal told the story of the team that "kept plugging away at car software" while others worked on phones (read via To Vima).