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Byline: J. Bonasia and Reinhardt Krause
Software To Keep Wheels Turning
Technology just keeps rolling along in the auto world.
Out are all those shiny Oldsmobiles and Cadillac Eldorados, bygone symbols of too much chrome and outlandish tail fins. In are sleek dashboards blinking with cool software.
Pretty soon, even the most mundane sedan will be a complex computer on wheels. Mercer Management Consulting expects software -- which makes up 20% of a typical vehicle today -- to comprise nearly 40% of all cars by 2010.
A car will have more software than a PC by the end of the decade, says Mercer analyst Jan Dannenberg. "Electronics and software will replace mechanics and hydraulics within the vehicle, thus becoming the key technology in the field of vehicle construction," he wrote in a recent study.
At the same time, telematics are turning cars into mobile platforms for computing, communications and entertainment. Telematics systems provide two-way voice and data feeds between vehicles and information service providers.