Wingcast Faces Potential $42B Market By 2010
Looking to a day when auto-based Internet will be as common as the car radio, Qualcomm Inc. and Ford Motor Co. are at work in San Diego on a multifaceted wireless communication service for vehicles.
The two companies announced the joint venture, tentatively called Wingcast last week.
Wingcast aims to bring voice, entertainment, Internet access, navigation and safety services into cars and trucks. Service will begin in late 2001 and grow more diversified as time passes, the companies announced.
Generically, such a service is called telematics. International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass., estimates the telematics market was $1 billion in 1998 and will grow to $42 billion by 2010.
Harel Kodesh, formerly of Microsoft and Motorola, will lead Wingcast as its president and CEO. Kodesh and Qualcomm have worked together previously on the Wireless Knowledge joint venture between Microsoft and Qualcomm.
Ford and Qualcomm officials declined to answer questions about how much equity each company has in the venture. Cartell, a Romulus, Mich.-based supplier of telematics equipment to automakers, is a minority equity stakeholder in the company.
The company may eventually go public, company officials said at a joint press conference last week.
Company officials spoke of a Wingcast server providing content not only to the auto-based system, but to wireless handheld telephones, personal computers or handheld computers.
They said voice activation will be a critical aspect of the system. They also spoke of a screen but it was unclear how that would be placed in a vehicle.
In an apparent allusion to advertising over Wingcast, one company official spoke of it delivering “offers that are relevant to you depending on where you are at the time.”
Ford expects more than 1 million of its new cars and trucks will be equipped with Wingcast by the end of 2002, 3 million by 2003 and virtually all of its cars and trucks by the end of 2004.
Nissan will also put Wingcast into certain luxury vehicles, officials of both companies announced.
General Motors offers a competing service, called OnStar, which provides drivers with a variety of services using communications and global positioning system technology. Wired magazine reported in November that GM was looking to give the system Internet capability.
A joint Ford-Qualcomm press release said Wingcast would combine Qualcomm’s Code Division Multiple Access, or CDMA, wireless technology with Ford’s telematics and consumer expertise.
Ford’s strategy is to “partner with the best” and there is “no better partner” in this venture than Qualcomm, said Ford president and CEO Jacques Nasser in introducing Qualcomm chairman and CEO Irwin M. Jacobs during last week’s press briefing.
Wingcast services will be available initially in North America over cdmaOne digital wireless networks. Advanced offerings using high-speed wireless data will become available as third-generation cdma2000 and WCDMA networks roll out.
Company officials spoke of providing the service in Europe and Asia.
