‘The world didn’t end with BlackBerry’s pivot’

Specialized workers have helped make region a leader in embedded software

WATERLOO REGION — BlackBerry’s rise and fall saturated this region with specialized software developers who found other work, a new study points out.

The study illustrates how “creative destruction” can lead to new technology startups and businesses, said Sean Mullin, executive director of the Brookfield Institute at Ryerson University.

“It’s never great news when a big locally based champion falters,” Mullin said. But “talent remains, and how it is being redeployed, I think, is a real opportunity for the Kitchener-WaterlooGuelph area.”

The study “confirms what I have been seeing in the marketplace,” said Tony LaMantia, president of the Waterloo Region Economic Development Corporation. “The world didn’t end with BlackBerry’s pivot.”

In its latest research, the institute counted Canadian software developers, drawing on data from Statistics Canada and from Stack Overflow, an online community used by developers to solve coding problems, build skills and find jobs.

The study titled Stacking Up, released Tuesday, finds that Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo are unusually thick with embedded developers.

These are people who develop computer code to run on chips embedded into industrial equipment, consumer appliances, automobiles or smart homes. It’s the discipline of about one in nine Canadian developers.

The report states: “Blackberry’s loss of market dominance may have resulted in a deep pool of experienced, qualified developers (especially embedded developers) in the region available to start or join new companies.”

The same thing happened when Nokia’s mobile business collapsed, saturating Helsinki, Finland, with software talent.

“It seems very intuitive to us that an area of the country that used to have a large R&D and software community focused on embedded systems … would continue to have a strong concentration in that area,” Mullin said.

BlackBerry is moving away from consumer smartphones to focus on other markets.

“If you’re serious about embedded applications, you need to visit Waterloo Region. It’s that simple,” LaMantia said.

He points to an example of former BlackBerry personnel engaged in something new. German giant Bosch Group is investing in local technology to be embedded in self-driving vehicles.

The Brookfield study ranks Waterloo Region fourth in the nation as a developer hub, measuring the concentration of software developers in its local workforce. This puts this region behind Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

This finding is consistent with new data from the 2016 census showing that this region has Canada’s highest concentration of employees who studied mathematics or computer science.

While the local concentration of software developers is strong, the absolute number is small compared to cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa.

“It’s not all roses and sunshine. Size matters,” LaMantia said.