Ford, Qualcomm join forces to create wireless vehicles

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by Ronna Abramson

(IDG) -- Ford Motor and Qualcomm are teaming up to bring Internet and wireless services to cars, stepping up competition in the nascent automobile telecom arena.

The companies announced the joint venture, named Wingcast, on Monday morning, marking Ford's first major foray into telematics, a field that integrates vehicle control and monitoring systems with location tracking and wireless telecommunications.

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The No. 2 car manufacturer expects to install the new technology in more than a million cars by 2002, in more than 3 million cars by 2003 and in virtually all of its new cars and trucks by the end of 2004. Ford and Qualcomm also are working with Nissan to bring new Wingcast technology to some of the Japanese automaker's luxury vehicles.

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"We want all of our cars and trucks to become personalized portals for our global consumers," said Ford President and CEO Jac Nasser, during a morning press conference at Ford's headquarters in Dearborn, Mich.

Ford envisions using Wingcast to provide basic safety services, such as alerting emergency services when air bags deploy. The automaker also plans to offer optional services, such as real-time traffic information, voice-activated e-mail and e-commerce capabilities.

Ford and Qualcomm, based in San Diego, Calif., will have equity stakes in Wingcast, a separate company of which Harel Kodesh, a former VP of consumer appliances at Microsoft (MSFT), has been named president and CEO.

Wingcast has some catching up to do to with General Motors (GM)telematics arm, dubbed OnStar, and with Mercedes-Benz's TeleAid service. Launched in fall 1996, OnStar expects to be available in 1 million vehicles by the end of the year and in 4 million by the end of 2003, according to spokesperson Geri Lama. OnStar's basic service, which costs $199 per year, includes a dedicated cellular network, an emergency-services alert, stolen-car tracking and remote door-unlocking capabilities. Mercedes-Benz's similar TeleAid service was a standard amenity in the model year 2000 S-Class vehicles.

The Strategic Group, a telecom consulting firm in Washington, projects revenues from automotive telematics services to grow from less than $40 million in 1999 to more than $1.7 billion by 2004. The number of subscribers is expected to grow from less than 200,000 at year-end 1999 to more than 11 million by 2004.

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