Apple Inc., among the world’s most-recognized technology companies, will open a workplace in Kanata, the Ottawa Citizen reported.
According to several sources in the Ottawa real estate community, the Cupertino, Calif., tech giant has leased a 22,000-square-foot space after searching in the capital area since at least October.
Apple has repeatedly refused discuss its Ottawa expansion, and on Wednesday again wouldn’t discuss be it office – relatively modest at approximately 2.Five times how big an average Apple retail outlet – is the beginning of any planned larger presence in the capital.
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The office is across the street from QNX Software Systems, a wholly owned division of BlackBerry Ltd. along with a leading developer from the automotive software that’s one of the tech industry’s hottest fields.
Ottawa Apple executive Sbastian Marineau-Mes is a former key QNX executive who left that company after a lengthy legal battle. Marineau-Mes, whose responsibilities included QNX’s auto software platforms and also the BlackBerry 10 operating-system, was originally hired by Apple in September 2013, but his departure was delayed after BlackBerry, citing non-compete clauses in the contract, fought the hiring in court.
According to profiles on the online network LinkedIn, several members of Marineau-Mes’s team have since left QNX for Apple. Included in this are Payam Moradshahi, now listed being an iOS embedded bring-up engineer at Apple after working almost six years at QNX, and Wadih Shaib, now an application engineer at Apple who spent near to seven years at QNX/BlackBerry.
Marineau-Mes did not return requests through the Citizen seeking comment on the new offices or Apple’s intentions within the Ottawa area.
In a statement, QNX described reports of Apple’s arrival in Ottawa, the position now held by Marineau-Mes and also the loss of employees towards the California company “rumours” and “speculation.”
As its parent company continues to sputter, QNX has shown itself the intense spot inside the organization as it is constantly on the gain share of the market among automotive manufacturers. In the last 33 years QNX has pioneered software to allow cars to complete everything from connecting to cellphones and playing music to autonomous driving. QNX software is installed in a lot more than Half of cars sold around the world.
Apple is on a mission to build its very own automobile. Its Project Titan has reportedly hired staff from Tesla Motors, Texas Instruments, Volkswagen, Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler.
Apple’s research and development budget jumped to US$8.07 billion U.S. in 2015, a 34-per-cent increase over 2014.
