The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday, Dec. 1, edition that John Wall jokes that he "came with the building" when BlackBerry bought QNX 15 years ago. The Globe's Sean Silcoff writes that at that time, BlackBerry sought to revive its smartphone business and had QNX develop the unsuccessful BB10 operating system. Mr. Wall, then senior director of engineering services at QNX, preferred not to join the BB10 project. He says: "From 2010 to 2014, nobody was paying attention to me. We weren't making enough money to be relevant." As BlackBerry's phone business cratered, Mr. Wall's unit gained importance. Today, QNX largely contributes to BlackBerry's market value, generating $63.1-million (U.S.) in revenue in the second quarter, a 15-per-cent increase year-over-year, with a 32-per-cent adjusted operating profit margin. QNX's operating system leads the "software-defined vehicle" market, serving all top 10 automakers. One-fifth of annual cars are software defined, with QNX in 90 per cent of them, totalling 255 million vehicles. After 32 years at QNX, the 57-year-old Mr. Wall, an electrical engineer and former chief operating officer, has been named president, replacing Mattias Eriksson.