Ford Sync Said to Drop Microsoft in Switch to BlackBerry

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GearTripper

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Ford Motor Co., struggling with in-car technology flaws, will base the next-generation Sync system on BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX and no longer use Microsoft Corp.’s Windows, according to people briefed on the matter.

Ford Sync Said to Drop Microsoft in Switch to BlackBerry - Bloomberg

By Craig Trudell and Jeff Green Feb 23, 2014 10:29 AM ET

Ford Motor Co., struggling with in-car technology flaws, will base the next-generation Sync system on BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX and no longer use Microsoft Corp.’s Windows, according to people briefed on the matter.

Using QNX will be less expensive than licensing Microsoft technology and will improve the flexibility and speed of the next Sync system, said the people, who declined to be identified because the decision hasn’t been made public. Ford has more than 7 million vehicles on the road with Sync using Microsoft voice-activated software to make mobile-phone calls and play music.

Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally, who was said to be a candidate to become Microsoft’s CEO until early this year, has seen Ford slump in surveys by J.D. Power & Associates and Consumer Reports, with customers citing malfunctioning technology systems and touch screens. The second-largest U.S. automaker has said the quality of its vehicles has been “mixed” each of the past three years and fell short of its plan to improve those results in 2013.

Improving Sync is crucial for Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford to draw car shoppers who are increasingly looking to be connected at all times. In-vehicle technology is the top selling point for 39 percent of auto buyers, more than twice the 14 percent who say their first consideration is traditional performance measures such as power and speed, according to a study by the consulting firm Accenture released in December.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Apple, Google

“We do not discuss details of our work with others or speculate on future products for competitive reasons,” Susannah Wesley, a Ford spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail.

Peter Wootton, a spokesman for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft who works for Waggener Edstrom, declined to comment. Paul Leroux, a spokesman for QNX, declined to comment.

The Ford and Lincoln brands ranked Nos. 26 and 27 out of 28 brands in Consumer Reports’ annual auto-reliability survey released in October. While the Lincoln luxury line matched the industry average in J.D. Power’s Initial Quality study in June, the namesake finished 27th out of 33 brands.

Technology companies are competing to win business from auto makers as in-car technology becomes an increasingly important selling point. Google Inc. announced an alliance with General Motors Co., Honda Motor Co., Hyundai Motor Co. and chipmaker Nvidia Corp. in January to bring the Android operating system to cars. Apple Inc. is working with Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz, Nissan Motor Co. and others to introduce its iOS operating system to cars with devices such as the iPhone.

QNX Software

BlackBerry’s QNX Software Systems can be found in cars made made by Volkswagen AG’s Audi unit and BMW, according to its website. QNX and Microsoft are the main suppliers of automotive operating system software, according to researcher IHS iSuppli.

BlackBerry, at the time named Research in Motion Ltd., bought QNX Software Systems for $200 million in 2010. In addition to its presence in cars, QNX technology is used to manage nuclear-power plants and by the U.S. military for unmanned aerial drones. Its customers include Cisco Systems Inc., General Electric Co. and Caterpillar Inc.

To contact the reporters on this story: Craig Trudell in Tokyo at [email protected]; Jeff Green in Southfield, Michigan at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at [email protected]; Jamie Butters at [email protected]
 

Rookie

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Idt Microsoft has bad products or software (most of the time). It makes me wonder why this lacks so much?
 

Vash

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Maybe Ford should look at the prevelent trends and dominant companies in the smartphone market since the in-car systems are going to be interfacing with the popular smartphones. We all know how well Blackberry ended up doing in the mobile sector. Ford moves away from Microsoft who's at least been trying to improve their UI for various systems and might hitch their wagon to a company who shot itself in the foot by resting on its laurels because it thought it would automatically stay king of the hill?

I think whoever will quit trying to reinvent the UI and just act as blank a conduit for the consumer's smartphones of choice will be ahead of the game. Honestly, just support Airplay and Chromecast-like functionality and leave it at that. Maybe the automaker can then focus on actually displaying relevant vehicle telemetry instead of the best way to display album art. Plus, if you rely more on the phone to do the heavy lifting like iOS in the car then you don't have to worry as much about obsolescence. The phone interfacing with the vehicle will have much better ongoing firmware/software support and periodically refreshed hardware vs. Sync which Ford/Microsoft basically drops support for once they move onto a newer version of the system. Also, better support for aftermarket systems would be nice so you don't have to potentially lose functionality once you decide your built-in infotainment system doesn't cut it anymore.
 
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