Walking around the recent Mobile World Congress and its parallel show Four Years From Now, it was hard to miss all the cars parked in the show booths.
Over the last few years, cars have had an increasingly noticeable presence at the mobile industry’s marquis event, and this year was no different. Carmakers, chipmakers, mobile network operators, and even Visa were showcasing vehicles with all sorts of bells and whistles aimed at making the connected lifestyle even easier to attain. There were a flurry of announcements and news reports about the head-on collision happening between the Internet of Things, smart cars and on-the-go connectivity, online purchasing, and smart homes link ups.
The future of connected lifestyle innovation is right there on your dashboard. Want to pick up a pizza on the way home from work? Soon, if Visa, Accenture and Pizza Hut place their bets right, you’ll just hit button on your dashboard, order what you’re craving and pay for it an integrated Visa Checkout system while Beacon technology lets the Pizza Hut crew know when you’veVolumetric Efficiency rolled into the parking lot.
So, when I happened upon the January press release about EMS company Flextronics setting up a new location in Detroit, it underlined the important influence the automotive and high-tech sectors now have on each other.
Undoubtedly, the two industries have long been aligned to one extent or another given the number of electronics components now housed within the standard, modern-day vehicle. But the IoT trend spotlights the critical design and supply chain relationship high-tech and automotive companies will have to strengthen to compete and win in the market.
