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Windows Automotive software Sync to be used in Ford vehicles
Ford, Microsoft team up on new auto technology.
BY A CORRESPONDENT
January 4, 2006
In what might be the start of an exciting technological future for cars and trucks, Ford Motor Company and software giant Microsoft Corporation
are expected to jointly announce soon that new Windows Automotive software will soon be available in Ford vehicles.
The new technology – named ‘Sync’ – will finally bring together two industries that have long been expected to cross paths, allowing consumers to
use their vehicles as a computer in key ways, such as hands-free cell phone calls or downloading music or receiving e-mail.
Ford and Microsoft are expected to reveal the project during press days at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which begins on
January 7, 2007, and the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which opens to the press a day
earlier in Las Vegas.
Microsoft officials have acknowledged a joint announcement will be made during the shows, but Ford
officials refused to comment publicly on the
reports.
Several websites have been reporting about the expected announcement in recent days.
"We've learned from a source close to Microsoft's car-computer project that Microsoft and Ford are planning to announce the US availability of the
system in 2007," the technology blog site Engadget says.
The Wall Street Journal had published a story on Friday about the companies' plans, saying the technology will debut next year as an option on at
least two Ford brand models that are to be freshened next year, the Focus and Five Hundred. ‘Sync’ will be available on all Ford models starting in
2008, and will be phased in to Lincoln and Mercury models later.
According to a concept Hummer H2 vehicle shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2004, the Microsoft technology works through a computer
located on the vehicle that runs Windows Auto software. The computer uses Bluetooth to connect wirelessly with a mobile phone in the car, which
in turn connects to the Internet. Motorists communicate with the system through a microphone embedded in the roof of the car.
On December 12, Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas, was asked why Bluetooth technology was not available on important new
models, such as the Ford Edge, and he hinted that something better was coming.
"I think you'll see us getting a lot more aggressive on those types of technologies," he told a small group of journalists who were reviewing the
company's still-secret new products in Detroit. Microsoft has already been working with Fiat, which does not sell vehicles in North America, to use
Windows Automotive software in cars – an infotainment project that was unveiled at the 2006 Geneva auto show and labelled ‘Blue&Me.’
Motorists can already use that system in vehicles such as the Fiat Grande Punto and the Alfa Romeo Brera, 159 and Spider models, but the
Microsoft project with Ford will be the first of its kind in North America.
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