Feb

Microsoft Wants Sync to Control Much More than Gadgets

Posted by admin Published in Auto News

You might think Ford’s Sync is just a great hands-free voice-activated cellphone and iPod controller, but Microsoft has big plans for the software it wrote to produce Sync work.

It wants to bring voice-activated network connectivity to your car.

Microsoft is betting we’ll have networked integrated entertainment and info systems within five years, and it wants Microsoft Auto to be the operating system they run on. The view is to one-up OnStar and prepare telematics a voice-activated part of daily life by providing real-time traffic updates, custom-tailored point-of-interest directories and other helpful info. Want to know the fastest way domestic from work? Your car will chart the course. Get hungry for Thai along the way? Your car will tell you where to find it. Decide to see a film after finishing your pad thai? Your car will tell you what’s playing and when. And, of course, it’ll tell you the fastest - or most scenic, or most fuel efficient - way to get there.

Looking 10 or 15 years down the road, Microsoft predicts cellular technology will let us download music and video directly to our cars, play online games and use vehicle-to-vehicle communications to avoid collisions. “This could be a revolutionary development for the automobile,” Martin Thall, general manager of Microsoft’s Automotive trade Unit, told us.

Microsoft isn’t interested in making gadgets. It wants to supply the
software that will link those gadgets to your car and your car to the
network. But as OnStar showed, mobile connectivity can be expensive to supply and to use.
Microsoft would take a cue from Google to manufacture it affordable.

Instead of charging a monthly subscription fee like OnStar, which costs $18.95 a month and up, the navi screen in a Microsoft-based system would display advertisements targeted to your search parameters and exact location. Looking for an Italian restaurant? The list would be accompanied by

ads for those nearby.

“We know where you are and we know where you’re headed,” Thall said. “We could target that advertising directly to your car.” He doesn’t think citizens will intellect seeing ads on their dashboards considering we’re “used to advertising in the car. We build out ads on the radio and see billboards on the road.”

We’re not so certain. Neither is Aaron Bragman, an auto industry analyst at Global Insight who says many citizens would consider it an invasion of privacy. Yes, he said, there are ads on the radio, but we tune them out whether not eliminate them all together.

“The reason satellite radio exists, and part of the reason TiVo exists, is considering humans don’t want advertising,” and they’re willing to pay to avoid it, he said. As for Thall’s point that an ad on a navi screen isn’t any different than a pop-up on a computer monitor, Bragman countered, “Look how big an industry we have providing pop-up blockers and other software to protect us from ads.”

Microsoft’s vision of connected cars isn’t so far-fetched. Ford is working with Sirius to bring Travel Link to all its cars, beginning with the 2009 Lincoln MKS. The system will supply real-time traffic and weather reports, sports scores and other info - including where to find the cheapest gas in your area. Ford plus will offer its Work Solutions on-board computing, communication and navigation system in its commercial trucks in 2010. Its $395 Sync system has been a runaway hit - cars with Sync outsell those without it by two to one - and Bragman says we’re going to see other automakers rushing to catch up.