“Like Apple, QNX has largely been forced to embrace – albeit
cautiously – the open source community because of Linux. QNX has
some clear and strong advantages over the open source OS in the
embedded space, but Linux’s free availability is clearly going to
have an impact on QNX’s business. QNX’s tactic, like Apple’s,
is to protect its core technologies by becoming sufficiently open
to attract developers who like the flexibility of the open source
model but need a more structured development environment than the
chaotic Linux world provides.”
“And since QNX uses the same APIs as Linux, such as Posix and X
Windows, it hopes to encourage developers who have experience with
the open source OS to shift over to Neutrino.”
“Then there’s competition with other RTOS vendors. QNX reckons
it’s number two in the market, behind WinRiver, but with 200-odd
vendors in the field, even WinRiver’s marketshare is just 10-15 per
cent of the market. QNX’s play for dominance centres on making its
technology more accessible than its rivals’, and in the Linux era,
that means opening portions of the code. It also means free
downloads of the full Neutrino environment and development tools –
or the QNX Realtime Platform, as it’s now being called.”