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Ford Abandons Microsoft for BlackBerry's QNX

posted by Dopefish on Sunday February 23 2014, @08:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the color-me-surprised dept.

joekiser writes "In 2010, Ford Motor Company was rated as top-five automotive manufacturer in terms of quality, per J.D. Power and Associates. This was a major turnaround for the automotive giant, which had faced bankruptcy just two years prior. This high reliability rating would be short lived however; Ford began installing touch screen hubs powered by Microsoft SYNC, which were both confusing and buggy.

By 2012, Ford quality rankings had dropped to 23rd, even after numerous software upgrades and a rebranding of SYNC to "MyFordTouch." One customer reported:

"The voice controls typically do not work until the vehicle has been on for five to 10 minutes, meaning short trips require dialing phone calls by hand, only to have the call cut off when the system finally starts up."

This slide continued into 2013, when Ford ranked 27th of 28 brands (as an aside, Ford's premium brand, Lincoln, ranked one slot higher that year at 26th).

Apparently, Ford Motor Company has had enough. On Friday, the Detroit News reported that Ford will make the switch to QNX on future vehicles. This is the same platform currently used by Acura, Audi, BMW, and Land Rover."

[ED Note: "Ford Motor Company's decision to move to QNX aside, I'll be heavily considering a Blackberry for my next phone, especially with rumors of a 64-bit octa-core model for later this year. BB10 also has gotten rave reviews for its design and ease-of-use."]

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Mykl on Monday February 24 2014, @12:45AM

    by Mykl (1112) on Monday February 24 2014, @12:45AM (#5403)
    From TFA (are we allowed to read that here?):

    "The automaker could easily update the software of those vehicles already equipped with Sync to the Blackberry software, said the person"

    I guess you don't need to worry about keeping a blacklist of SYNC-enabled Ford devices, as long as they offer an upgrade for them.

  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 24 2014, @02:28AM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday February 24 2014, @02:28AM (#5457) Journal

    Could easily does not mean will likely.

    You just about have to beg for upgrades of anything in your dash. The concept never occurred to them.

    I finally got Chrysler to force Garmin to send me an upgrade to the Garmin Map engine that Chrysler uses because it wouldn't do one little thing that the manual claimed it would (Tone alerts for custom Points of Interest like speed cameras etc).

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.