| Sitting the house or maybe getting dressed
ready to go off to work it suddenly occurs to you that you might need
to change your plans, because you think the car might need some fuel,
and the extra 10 minutes needs to be factored into the equation. You realise
that the details that were e-mailed to you for this morning’s meetings
are still sitting in your e-mail programme, whereas you need them in the
car. So you stroll over to the nearest terminal or pick up the nearest
hand-held PDA and every room in the house as a terminal handy, linked
to the rest of the home network and to the outside world and connect to
the car, which is sitting outside on the drive. Within moments the in-car
navigation system has been appraised of your plans for the day and is
now working out route directions that will ensure you make each appointment
on schedule. At the same time you have been able to check the amount of
fuel in the car, the level of washer fluid in its reservoir, and anything
else you need to know about. The navigation package has checked the traffic
conditions, and has also booked you a slot in the car park in the city
centre for your third call of the day.
This sort of thing used to be the stuff of techies’ dreams, but
today is a reality thanks to an organisation called OSGi. The acronym
of Open Services Gateway initiative, OSGi is an affiliation of companies
in the automotive technology sector, and in the worlds of computing and
communications.
To explore the rationale of OSGi, which was formed only a couple of years
ago, it is necessary to go back to the late 1970s, and the creation of
the Apple personal computer. For those unfamiliar with what happened,
Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wosniack pretty well created the PC
but decided that they would hang onto their intellectual property by keeping
a tight hold on its applications. Apple would market the software and
would also produce the hardware, and nobody else would get a sniff of
the action.
Meanwhile IBM was working on a similar concept, but took the opposite
view – it would license out its knowledge to anybody prepared to
pay for it. The result was that IBM-style computers (most of which were
to be using software made by Microsoft) came to dominate the marketplace.
Today Apple has maybe seven per cent of the global market – despite
its technical and ergonomic superiority – and the rest is taken
up by the package conceptualised by IBM.
The people behind OSGi realised that there were many companies involved
in what is referred to as the telematics industry – remote access
to and from vehicles, and other places or facilities – all of whom
were pursuing their own pathways. They were aware from looking at the
computer industry that an openly available technology platform was the
sensible way to go, as it would allow the industry to grow. In essence,
it is better to have a small slice of a very large cake than a complete
but tiny fairy bun of your own. So they set out, under the umbrella of
a not-for-profit association, to bring together key players and to encourage
the development of an open operating architecture into which ideas could
be plugged. Which is how a wide number of companies have come to work
together.
Amongst OSGi members are blue chips such as Sun, IBM, Motorola, Telefonica,
Deutsche Telekom. BMW, NTT, Mitsubishi, Bosch, Siemens VDO, Toshiba and
Texas Instruments, alongside smaller, more specialised operations of the
likes of Acunia and Omenet.
Each of these businesses function independently in its main area of operation,
but whenever there is a telematics-based process involved it works to
the OSGi platform, thus ensuring total interoperability with other systems.
The business case for such a process is, to quote from Siemens VDO’s
Olivier Pave, irresistible: “it is vitally important to have seamless
integration between systems. For instance the use of the PDA as an interface
between home and car could be achieved, but would be considerably more
difficult without the OSGi architecture. This provides an easy way of
achieving such hardware relationships.”
Motorola’s Dr John Barr sees the OSGi platform as a way of developing
a considerable number of applications that will work for the good of the
industry. He cites the case for remote diagnostics. This is widely accepted
as a means of improving profitability by allowing carmakers to develop
a series of products that will benefit all involved. Cars will become
more reliable not only because of their ability to receive software upgrades
without the need to visit a service centre, but also due to car electronic
architecture developers being able to draw on information gathered whilst
they are in daily use. This is the type of information that is notoriously
difficult to gather in controlled test situations.
Manufacturers, by being able to dramatically reduce recall rates, will
be able to reduce set-asides for potential warranty claims.
There is a caveat attached to the application of such technology. “The
system must be absolutely bullet-proof, with no possibility of anybody
being able to hack into it,” was how one observer put it. Provided
that obstacle is overcome, then the potential for improving the life of
everybody from manufacturer through to driver is considerable. This is
especially true for those manufacturers which are in the process of buying
back dealership sites; by reducing warranty claims they will be able to
reduce service costs, thus making a considerable positive impression of
profitability. The additional benefits of pre-service reports from vehicles
– allowing accurate anticipation of remedial work – will be
a further benefit provided by remote diagnostics.
Motorola is actively partnering a number of vehicle manufacturers in this
area, and is also working with major names in the workshop equipment industry.
“Without the benefit of a commonalised operating platform such developments
would be virtually impossible,” said Barr.
At a recent OSGi conference held in Düsseldorf, BMW showed some of
the technologies that it has been able to develop quickly and effectively
thanks to its adoption of the OSGi modus operandi. Demonstrating the latest
version of their iDrive in-vehicle information and technology system,
it showed how the next generation iDrive will be able to draw on local
cell traffic information to provide drivers with real time, close range
information on traffic, weather and road conditions.
This is based on a local broadcast system, using short-range 802.11 broadcasts
from vehicles in the area. Initially confined only to BMW vehicles, it
is anticipated that other manufacturers will adopt this system. If a car
encounters a problem – anything from an accident to patches of untreated
ice or flooded roadways – it will immediately fire the appropriate
message from its on-board system, this being picked up by other vehicles
within a couple of kilometres. Those vehicles that are approaching the
problem area will then advise their drivers by flashing up a warning triangle
icon on the map display of the iDrive screen. A click of the iDrive “mouse”
will enable the driver to gain more detailed layers of information. The
system will be able to provide a re-route to the driver automatically,
providing a detour around the problem area. BMW anticipates that this
system will be fully functional within the next two years.
Also new from BMW is its enhanced navigation service, designed to work
in with the driver’s PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) device.
Using Bluetooth close-proximity wire-free connectivity, the driver uses
the iDrive system to configure the street address of a chosen destination.
The system then provides a route that will take the car to the nearest
available car park. Information on space availability will be made available
to the driver in advance of the journey, and ultimately – once local
authorities have completed development of their individual parking infrastructures
– be able to pre-book a space. Meanwhile the final part of the journey,
the walk from the car park to the office or home building, will be downloaded
to the PDA in the form a street-level map with turn-by-turn guidance.
The same Bluetooth PDA to car link will also be used to upload information
from the hand-held device to the iDrive system, so that contact numbers
stored in the hand-held address book facility will be automatically accessible
through the car’s in-built telephone system. It is possible to configure
the system so that data is dropped from the iDrive (but retained in the
PDA) once the car has been locked up and left. This ensures that in multi-user
car scenarios any sensitive data is not available to subsequent users
of the vehicle.
Now into its fifth year of existence, the OSGi alliance is beginning to
bear fruit, but the suggestion is that these developments mentioned here
are merely the tip of the iceberg and that in the coming few months many
more developments will begin to show on the surface. However, this does
not mean that
OSGi members will have it all their own way. There is a conspicuous absentee
from the list of partner companies – the mighty Microsoft Corporation.
It energies are being directly focused on its own CE Automotive operating
platform, a system which is being viewed favourably by such carmakers
as Citroën, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Toyota and Volvo.
Given the market dominance of the Seattle-based software house, it is
understandable that carmakers should look seriously at what it has to
offer, but there is potential for a replay of the Apple versus IBM situation.
However, given the consolidation shown by OSGi, the chances of that alliance
becoming the loser are slim. It has been suggested that Microsoft will
quietly withdraw from the automotive sector, but this seems unlikely.
So what is likely to remain in the near future is a dual set of standards,
with two camps competing until the sheer weight of adoption comes down
in favour of one side or the other. That OSGi is about to be wrapped into
the imminent 3GT international standard for telematics applications suggests
that the alliance will gradually achieve dominance – leaving those
who presently work with Microsoft feeling increasingly isolated. The other,
tantalising and increasingly feasible, prospect is that Microsoft will
quietly adapt its core technology to allow it to integrate with the OSGi
platform. That this could happen before skirmishes and corporate arm wrestling
bouts become a full-scale war is entirely possible. Despite its market
dominance, Microsoft is also a pragmatic business, one that has proven
itself adaptable to suit market forces and conditions.
In the meantime, expect an increasing number of vehicle manufacturers
to begin announcing new partnerships, both transparent and opaque, for
applications based on the OSGi platform many of which will interface seamlessly
with household and office-based computing systems
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