CMP Techweb: In-Vehicle PC's Face Bumpy Road
techweb.com
The PC moved into the driver's seat at the Society of Automotive Engineers show in Detroit in late February, where PC makers discussed products that would extend the computer's reach into the car for navigation, entertainment, and many of the offerings of the Internet. If their scenarios play out as planned, drivers will get up-to-the-minute traffic info, check e-mail, and make phone calls from a PC that will also function as a radio.
Summary
1. Ford's Visteon group said they were using Windows CE and Intel processors (poor choice, IMHO), but did not mention Microsoft Auto-PC. In fact they specifically said they wanted to do everything else themselves.
2. GM (Delphi) demo'd a Saab with a PC built around Microsoft's Auto PC architecture, which uses Windows CE. They also showed a system using IBM/Sun/Netscape products.
3. Clarion is planning an aftermarket product to be introduced this summer.
4. Navigation is a "given" in all these systems. Traffic alerts, internet links, communications options, gaming and entertainment capabilities are all being discussed as options.
Many observers say the automotive computer will have to do a lot more than provide navigation assistance if it's going to have any success in the United States.
5. Microsoft Auto-PC will not be ready for OEM's until 2000 or 2001, but could be available 1999.
6. Intel is pushing entertainment and the like while Microsoft is concentrated on the driver.
7. "We will introduce navigation in a car in the U.S. in 1999," said Holger Hellmich, senior sales manager at Bosch Mobile Communications Division in Hildesheim, Germany. They haven't decided whether to go with Microsoft or not. {Anybody know if their own navigation system uses Trimble?}
8. Cabling is a big unsolved problem for entertainment (i.e., back seat) options.
Petz |
