the automotive industry: moving with mobile - ty beltramo case study

8/9/2019 The Automotive Industry: Moving with Mobile - Ty Beltramo Case Study

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POINTABOUT CASE STUDY:

The Automotive Industry:

CONTACT P OINTABOUT AT 202.391.0347 OR [email protected]

MOVING WITH MOBILE

PointAbout Inc. COO Daniel

Odio chats with auto indus-try expert Ty Beltramo abouthow the auto industry canget up to gear with mobile.

CAPTURING THE UNIVERSE

Ty Beltramo and his partnerstarted out making nativeiPhone apps featuring astro-nomical projections thatcould track down where auser was located in the world except the North or SouthPole - and then calculatewhere the sun or moon wasin relation to the user. It alsofeatured details on moonphases.

That was a lot of heavy

math, a lot of trigonometry, alot of geometry to figure thatstuff out, Ty said. Successrequired keeping memorysmall and making heavycalculations fast. We had tocalculate pieces of data every10 minutes over a 28-dayperiod, he said.

And the universe was just

where he started.

Ty started making high-frame-rate old school arcadegames, as well as childrenseducational games. He also

made a Safari clone app that

allowed companies to reportall browser activity for aperson, thereby increasingaccountability at organiza-tions.

Then he moved on to theautomotive industry, firstmaking an application forthe Chevy Cruze that enabledsales staff to capture infor-

mation in the field, searchinventory, do basic configu-ration and inventory search-es mixing model and carfeatures, and then return alist of all inventory, listed bypercent match, to the salesand marketing departmentthat processed leads.

He didnt stop there. Hemade the iPhone OnstarExperience app, which wasreally two apps in one.

One part of the app alloweda user to engage with andconnect to a Chevy Volt,providing command andcontrol, charging options,door lock/unlock, horn

honking, light flashing, andlocation capabilities.

The second part of the appengaged a user to a ChevyVolt simulator so people


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THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY: MOVING WITH MOBILE


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could experience the app andall the action of the first partof the app without owningthe vehicle.

WHERE THE MOBILE INDUSTRY

IS HEADED... AND QUICKLY

The number of people whoown smartphones - thathave browsing capability,web capability and applica-tion download capability isgoing from 90 million world-wide today to 190 million

in three years, Ty said. Inaddition, industry leadersare coming out with entirelynew class of mobile devices,such as the iPad.

People live in a connectedecosystem, said Ty, andthat connected ecosystemused to be tied to their homecomputer or their work com-

puter, and now its follow-ing people around in theirphone.

As this transition occurs,traditionally separate tech-nologies are collapsing intomobile devices camera,news reader, music/movie/TV players, email, texting,Twitter. Just the range ofapplications alone is stag-gering, Ty said, citing the190,000 apps currently inthe App Store (the numberhas risen to 225,000 sincepublication of this article).

People are becoming moreand more connected, and allthat connectivity is startingto revolve around the mobiledevice as a nucleus some-thing they are putting in theirpocket.

Ty says as the number ofpeople with smartphonesincreases over time, networkcapabilities will also improve.And with that, consumersexpectations will rise. Con-sumers will demand more interms of how they are con-

nected, who they are con-nected to and how they canuse data, he said.

Its not going to be abouttexting, Ty said. Its goingto be about communitiesthat are going to be formedad hoc out of data that wehavent even thought of yet.

MOBILE AND THE

AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

The automotive space isunique, Ty said, becausecars are meant to be inmotion, and location-basedservices are becoming moreand more important.

The car generates a tremen-dous amount of data that isimportant to the person inthe car as well as to a wholeseries of people who arentin the car including traffic,

road conditions, populationdensities, and populationmigration.

Additionally, the car gives off

information about the heatit generates, the pollutionparticulates it gives off thecar knows all these things and as people become moreeco-conscious, they will beinterested in capturing thisinformation, Ty said.

You will see a bunch ofcommunities developing,

Ty said. People will relate toeach other in ways were notthinking about today, suchas everyone who drives on acertain stretch of highway ata certain time of day - thatis a community, and thosepeople want to share infor-mation about that trip.

Additionally, navigationought to become free,Ty said. There is a wholemarket segment - like TomToms and Garmins - thatis going to disappear or befundamentally changed,Ty said. He said the iPadsturn-by-turn feature, foruse while docked in a car, isalready changing that.

What people need to bethinking about are whatkinds of things are going todisappear or be assimilatedinto this technology - liketurn-by-turn navigation and


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media streaming, Ty said,and how devices can col-laborate with other devices.

CARS ARE PERIPHERALS

As the mobile device becomesthe center of reality, otherobjects in consumers liveswill have to adapt accord-ingly.

The biggest mistake busi-nesses make is thinkingthat the mobile device isperipheral, when in actuality,

its the total opposite. Themobile device is the hub, notthe spoke. Youre going tosee the car be a huge periph-eral for mobile devices; itis inevitable. It doesnt takemuch of a prophet to see it its happening now.

The auto industry isnt

immune to the mobilerevolution and will need tostart thinking of the car asa peripheral instead of themobile device, if the indus-try wants to stay relevant,Ty said. The car drives andis designed to provide thefunction of transportation ina way that people enjoy beingtransported - and anything

beyond that is peripheral toit, Ty explains, but when aperson gets in a car, the car isperipheral to the person andtheir mobile device, and thatpersons idea of connectivity

centers around the mobiledevice, not the car. Car-makers need to accept thattheir customers are bringingtheir media, data contractand applications into the car.

If the auto manufacturerscan engineer new vehiclehardware properly so it canadapt to the ever changingand ever evolving consumerelectronics industry, [then]the sky is the limit, Ty said.

For auto manufacturers, the

rapid evolution of the mobileworld is difficult becauseconsumer electronics suchas mobile devices can bedeveloped at a faster ratethan cars. Cars may have afundamental disadvantagebecause it takes a long timeto go from engineering toproduction, so they cannotcompete with the rate of

change in the mobile space,which is changing every sixmonths, Ty said.

To deal with the long pro-duction cycles, car manufac-turers will need to develop adelivery mechanism for whatis happening on the mobiledevice, Ty said. The inte-

gration of the mobile deviceto the car will require a flex-ible interface that can acceptchanging mobile devices.The car will then feedinformation on the engine,transmission, brakes, etc.


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to the mobile device via theinterface.

Carmakers need to focus onproviding capability insteadof applications themselves.Right now people are creat-ing single-purpose boxes inthe factory, Ty said. Theyneed to get away from that.

It will require a change ofthought; the automotivecompanies in a sense haveto give up control, Ty said.

MOBILE STRATEGY FOR CARMANUFACTURERS:TYS ADVICE

1. Get a good partner. Thereis a breadth of disciplinesthat have to be mastered from social networking andapplication and communi-ties to software provisiondistribution models, plus the

business side of monetizingand marketing, Ty said.

Ty cited Fords partnershipwith Microsoft. Fords stra-tegic partnership with Micro-soft has allowed it to becomean industry technologyintegration leader with SYNCand Hohm, both powered byMicrosoft. Between SYNC,

and Hohm, a Ford driverwill be able to control theirmobile device via voice acti-vation to get real time carhealth data, traffic data, anddirections. They will also

be able to make calls, readand send texts, search andplay music all without evertouching their mobile device.

The new electric cars, start-ing with Fords Focus Electric2011 models, will providedrivers with key informationallowing them to plug intheir cars during non-peakhours for more efficient andmore affordable recharging.Ford and Microsoft are evenworking with local utilitycompanies to create an entire

energy ecosystem.

2. Start identifying and build-ing key capabilities softwaredistribution, building inte-gration specs.

Ty said these pieces wouldnot fall under the umbrellaof the automotive organiza-tion, but should be done via a

joint venture that allows theorganization to be physicallyand culturally isolated fromthe manufacturing side.

Current developments inspeech recognition, internalinformation projection ontothe mirror, dash and wind-shield, hand-gesture recog-

nition, in-car cameras thattrack drivers eye movement,and other technologies canmake this area a designersplayground.

Get them isolated from the

auto industry, give themmarching orders, and letthem create the culture, Tysaid. Its not an automotiveproject; its a project that hasan automotive element to itAnd its not a mobile projectits a project that requiresmobile integration, he said.

Dont be afraid to innovateto create something new andindependent that is free toexperiment and fail, to trycrazy things that might seeminsane, Ty said. Everyone

needs to be thinking about itbut how they play in the spacedepends on the company its character, its culture, andits will, Ty said. I cant thinkof a [single] industry thatwouldnt benefit from this.

3. Develop prototypingcapability. Test on a fleetthen integrate feedback and

ideas.

The auto industry typi-cally cycles through a 36- to54-month product develop-ment cycle. If you wait twoyears, youre going to have aproblem, Ty said. Ford wilbe able to ride that wave asacceleration in technology

continues to ramp up. Com-panies who start early will beable to generate more veloc-ity for themselves, while ifthey start behind, they wilbe lower on the momentumcurve. Prototyping allows a


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company to test new technol-ogy with agility not affordedin the typical industry cycle.

Much like consumers

demand side air bags andanti-lock brakes today, pre-viously seen as luxury add-ons, consumers will start todemand enhanced in-cartechnological features, Tysaid. It will be crippling forany automotive manufactur-er to disregard the currentmobile movement and notinnovate.

As a last piece of advice, Tysaid, Know your company. Ifyou dont have the will, thenoutsource it. If you can gen-erate the faith and belief thatit is core to your business,then make it core. Knowingyour customer is second onlyto knowing your own prod-ucts.

Everyone needs to be think-ing about it, but how theyplay in the space depends onthe company its character,its culture, its will, Ty said.I cant think of an industrythat wouldnt benefit fromthis.

the automotive industry: moving with mobile - ty beltramo case study

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