Joining the Dots to a Connected Car Future

I’ve been prepping a new feature on the future of the connected car industry and one thing is pretty clear: things are moving faster than you think.

We’re currently working our way through three of the four stages of industry evolution mapped out by Gartner. It claimed in a December report that efforts to integrate mobile and cloud-based apps into the car are almost complete – that’s one stage down. Then, up until 2024 it’ll be all about “digital lifestyle convergence”.

The report explained:

“This convergence means that consumers want to be able to communicate with friends and family members, remain productive to their workplace, and to be entertained with the content that they also access outside of the automobile. Users will also expect an automotive connectivity experience that is similar to other device experiences they are increasingly accustomed to, such as remote, over-the-air software updates and content/services upgrades.”

Microsoft has a good chance to capitalise on this shifting focus, with its new Connected Vehicle Platform. One of the five main pillars outlined by EVP of business development, Peggy Johnson, at CES, is “improved in-car productivity” via tools like Cortana, Dynamics, Office 365, Power BI and Skype for Business.

“For instance, imagine that Cortana seamlessly connects you whether you’re at home or in your car,” she explained. “Let’s say you’re on your phone at home and tell Cortana to set up a meeting for you and your colleague the next morning at a coffee shop. The next time you get in your car, Cortana reminds you of the morning meeting and starts navigation to get you to that coffee shop.”

With its heritage in the office productivity space, Microsoft obviously has an edge in these scenarios over connected car rivals like Apple, Google and Amazon, although its Azure-powered platform will also cover predictive maintenance, advanced navigation, customer insights and autonomous capabilities.

The platform’s open, partnership-based approach could also play well with consumers who are sick of many current systems, according to Quocirca analyst Clive Longbottom.

“Users are increasingly frustrated with in-car technology,” he told me. “Even new models tend to be based on old, proprietary technology; technology that is impossible to swap out and replace with something more up to date and flexible.”

The Redmond giant knows the industry better than most, continued IHS Markit principal analyst Egil Juliussen.

“The auto industry is among those global industries which adds numerous requirements for how connected cars are treated (i.e. privacy, data storage locations, etc.),” he told me via email. “All of these complexities make it expensive and time-consuming for any auto manufacturer (even the largest) to develop, update and maintain cloud and software platforms to manage their network of connected cars.”

Partners on board

And therein lies the opportunity for Microsoft and others. The firm has also announced partnerships with Volvo, Daimler, Nissan-Renault, BMW and Toyota which will see each use its cloud-based tech to create their own unique platforms. This ability to customise is another obvious benefit of its platform for carmakers.

So where are we headed? Well, autonomous vehicles of course. Gartner reckons that by 2030 self-driving tech might even have created a new car ownership model – where we simply “hire” on-demand driverless cars for our journeys rather than own a vehicle outright. Already a third of Americans the analyst surveyed said they’d forgo purchasing a new vehicle if they could pay for such a service.

Apple CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto are certainly major contenders for the connected car crown, especially in terms of integrating the car into the whole mobile experience. But Microsoft’s cloud-based approach, which is flexible enough to incorporate new technologies as it goes, has a decent chance of winning more carmaker minds and driver hearts.