Just Announced, Microsoft Will Soon Release its Windows Automotive 4.2 Software Platform
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| Bill Gates' Microsoft Corp. has plans to expand his Windows empire much farther into the automotive segment. (Photo: Microsoft) |
Despite automaker cutbacks in spending on information technology during the past two years, Microsoft Corp.'s CEO said he sees many opportunities for the Redmond, Wash.-based software company.
"I understand that the auto companies have to do what they need to do at times like this," said Steve Ballmer, who is one of Microsoft founder Bill Gates' first employees. "A big part of their capital spending, about 50 percent, is not on manufacturing but rather IT (information technology) spending. I don't like the cutbacks, but I understand them."
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| Microsoft is working together with automakers and suppliers to create the next generation of automotive telematics. (Photo: Microsoft) |
But, Microsoft has been able to provide the automakers and their suppliers with a number of IT solutions, such as helping General Motors Corp. to develop a complex computer system to allow it to collaborate electronically to its suppliers, like Johnson Controls Inc. and Delphi Automotive Systems, to its strategic partners like Italy's Fiat or Toyota Motor Corp., Ballmer said, while speaking March 26 the Microsoft Automotive Executive Summit, at The Ritz-Carlton, Dearborn, Mich.
Microsoft also sees many opportunities to provide the automakers with IT solutions that will make so-called telematics systems work. Telematics refers to various "connectivity" information and entertainment devices that range from GM's OnStar, which can be considered as a first-generation telematics unit, to more advanced systems that could provide navigation information, remote vehicle diagnostics, remote toll payments, instant messages, or other personalized information services "wirelessly" (via a satellite or cellular phone connection).