small company creates successful operating system
fortune.com
As far as anyone can tell, software created by a Canadian company called QNX Software Systems simply doesn't crash. QNX's software has run nonstop without mishaps at some customer sites since it was installed more than a decade ago. As a delighted user has put it, "The only way to make this software malfunction is to fire a bullet into the computer running it."
Like Windows or Linux, QNX's program is an operating system, the traffic cop that organizes and runs a computer's many functions. But this operating system is used mostly in highly specialized, real-time industrial applications. QNX software directs "extreme" manufacturing, such as guiding the flawless grinding of optical lenses--a process in which the slightest software glitch can ruin a product worth $100,000. It's also used to control facilities such as nuclear power plants and other critical installations where any software funny business could be catastrophic.
QNX's software is the brainchild of Dan Dodge, 48, the company's CEO, and Gordon Bell, 47, its president (they swap titles every year). They're subdued, low-key fellows--until you ask about their technology. Then they grow animated and even passionate. They're friends who drive basic cars no different from those of their employees and live in modest houses. Tucked away in a nondescript industrial park in Kanata, Ontario, an Ottawa suburb 2,400 miles from the hubbub of Silicon Valley, QNX has been called a "stealth company," its founders say. |
