Microsoft will help Automakers to create innovative vehicles that deliver better, safer driving experiences.

Microsoft is bringing our software and cloud expertise to the automotive industry. Microsoft is sharing their expertise in developing, supporting and maintaining IoT technologies. Rather than attempting to build their own connected car, they’re providing automakers with a platform that does the heavy lifting across multiple areas of connectivity – empowering customers and partners with the cloud-based tools to connect services and data together. This enables automakers to focus on what they do best: creating innovative vehicles that deliver better, safer driving experiences.

Since the platform is based in the cloud, it is a living system that allows automakers to address these core tenets of connected driving:

1. Predictive maintenance
2. Improved in-car productivity
3. Advanced navigation
4. Customer insights
5. Help building autonomous driving capabilities
6. Integrated Personal Digital Assistant
7. Telematics & Predictive Services
8. Optimize  customer experience, reducing driver distraction & safety hazards.
9. Increase safety, optimize vehicle performance, deliver real time information to the driver with connected Advanced Driver Assistance System.

During their CES keynote today, the company said they committed to the platform because of Microsoft’s flexibility, multi-OS and programming language support, enterprise-grade security and rigorous commitment to compliance.

“This is not an in-car operating system or a ‘finished product.’ It’s a living, agile platform that starts with the cloud as the foundation and aims to address five core scenarios that our partners have told us are key priorities: predictive maintenance, improved in-car productivity, advanced navigation, customer insights and help building autonomous driving capabilities,” Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of Business Development at Microsoft said in a Jan. 5 CES-2107 announcement.

“Microsoft’s cloud will do the heavy lifting by ingesting huge volumes of sensor and usage data from connected vehicles, and then helping automakers apply that data in powerful ways.

From Microsoft Blog:

Other automakers are embracing the platform as well. Microsoft is working with BMW on in-car productivity and an intelligent, personal driver assistant that can look at calendars, traffic, parking, routing and countless other factors to deliver more intuitive and seamless driving experiences. We’re also partnering with Volvo to integrate Skype for Business in Volvo’s 90 Series cars, and Toyota is using the platform to enable in-car services, personalized experiences, better safety, and smart city integration, among other scenarios.
The Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform brings together the best of Microsoft technology to provide a trusted, back-end foundation for the creation of innovative connected car solutions. It combines Microsoft’s IoT expertise with sophisticated machine learning, artificial intelligence tools, advanced mapping services and end-to-end analytics that provide greater insights into vehicle usage. It also enables the integration of productivity and digital life services that take advantage of familiar Microsoft products like Cortana, Dynamics 365, Office, Power BI and Skype for Business. And thanks to Azure’s global cloud infrastructure with 38 datacenters around the world, including China, the Microsoft Connected Vehicle platform provides global availability, along with robust security, compliance and privacy measures – ever-present concerns in a connected world.

Stay tuned to FUTECHLIFE for more updates.