Microsoft – Surprisingly Not Apple – May Kill the CD
At some point the humble CD player was going to go, but I always thought it would be Apple and not Microsoft who would sound its death knell. It looks like Microsoft’s recent move into car electronics will eventually kill the CD – there will no longer be a need for it!
Microsoft already dominates the desktop, laptop and server markets along with a chunk of the games market and the smart phone market. Now it’s moving into the car electronics market and plans to dominate it too.
The Ford motor company plans to offer an in-car communication and entertainment system from Microsoft as an option on a dozen US models later this year and in nearly all of its cars next year. The tie up with Ford will enable Microsoft to get into more than 600 million cars worldwide.
The onboard computer system called “Sync” uses Bluetooth to let you connect to a mobile phone for making hands-free calls and to an MP3 player for controlling and playing music through the audio system. The system is voice activated or can be controlled via buttons on the steering wheel. It sounds well integrated and easy to operate.
I’m an enthusiastic smart phone user. I have all my contacts on my phone, receive my email on it and have it synchronised with our Microsoft Exchange server in the office. I find this kind of connectivity invaluable when I’m out of the office or in the car, but I’m frustrated by the lack of facilities and crude integration when I’m in the car. I’m looking forward to the following Sync integration:
- Plays conversations from callers through the cars audio system and uses inbuilt speakers
- Shows contact information and address books from the phone in the cars built in display.
- Enables you to browse contacts and place calls using voice commands or buttons inside the car
- Reads incoming text messages and plays them to you through the cars sound system
- Connects to music devices including Microsoft Zune and Apple’s iPod to let drivers browse and play music via voice commands or buttons
Microsoft and Ford don’t have this space to themselves. General Motors and DaimlerChrysler already have competing systems and Fiat already has a deal in place with Microsoft. Nevertheless analysts say this gives Ford the lead in this increasingly competitive market. Ford says it sees the Microsoft system as one way to differentiate it’s vehicles in the eyes of car buyers.
Ford is already discussing whether it needs to put CD players in future models: music will increasingly be held on your MP3 player or even your mobile phone. That in turn will accelerate the move to MP3 players and reduce the number of CD’s in circulation. There is likely to be a knock on effect with computers. After all a 1GB memory stick holds more data than a CD and now costs less than £10. I can’t remember the last time I used the CD/DVD drive on my PC. Most of the data and applications that I have installed recently have been downloaded from the internet. While it may not be essential to have a CD/DVD drive (or something similar) on every PC they won’t entirely disappear for some time. It will probably always be useful to have a good old fashioned standard mechanical data transfer device somewhere on the network.
I still think fondly of floppy disks – it may be CD’s soon!
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