Bosch and Microsoft will be working together on a software platform for vehicles. The announcement came on Thursday and is a clear move on the software giant’s part, to get its foot in the door of the growing electromobility and automated driving market.
The software platform will use cloud technology to ensure that the vehicle’s control units and computers can get software in their entire lifetime, according to the German auto supplier.
The technology is based on Microsoft Azure and includes modules developed by Bosch. The companies plan to use the software platform in vehicle prototypes by the end of this year.
Bringing smartphone efficiency to a car
Bosch’s Managing Director, Markus Heyn, said that the companies are creating the conditions to make wireless updates work as smoothly on vehicles as they do on a smartphone.
The companies are also planning to adapt their already-developed software tools to allow automakers and suppliers to simplify and develop their software updates faster.
Just last week, German carmaker Volkswagen announced a partnership similar to the one Bosch and Microsoft announced. Volkswagen plans to use Microsoft’s cloud computing service to streamline software development.
The challenges of varied software and safety concerns
The new platform is intended to deliver a painless experience. The updates will happen, the same way that they do for your phone.
A critical part of this plan is safety, which will see to it that automotive software developers adhere to strict automotive quality standards. The process of quality assurance is where vehicle software updates become tricky.
Since the models developed by different automotive software developers are varied, things get more complicated. However, it is only a matter of time before driverless technology is commonplace and widely adopted.
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