Ford Produces Three Millionth
SYNC-equipped Vehicle Powered by
Microsoft
Built on Windows Embedded Automotive, Ford’s Award-Winning,
Value-Driven Connectivity System Improves Consumer Perception
Ever since Henry Ford built the world’s first manufacturing assembly line in
1913, the Ford Motor Company has been a symbol of innovation worldwide.
In the 21st century, Ford is breaking new ground in telematics. Partnering with
Microsoft, Ford created SYNC, its best-selling infotainment system to date. At
the heart of SYNC is Microsoft Windows Embedded Automotive, which
delivers a powerful and reliable platform with numerous connectivity options
and turns SYNC into a gateway for phones, digital music players, and more.
SYNC has not only helped sell more Ford cars, but it has also strengthened
consumer perceptions of Ford as a leader in safety, quality, and smart
technology.
“Ford SYNC has helped us grow, strengthen, and differentiate our
company’s brand in North America – as well as enhance the
perception of Ford as an innovator. We’re looking forward to
extending both SYNC and our brand to global markets.”
Paul Mascarenas, Vice President of Engineering for Global Product Development,
Ford Motor Company
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Automotive
Customer Profile
Ford Motor Company is a global
automotive industry leader,
manufacturing and distributing vehicles
in 200 markets across six continents.
Business Situation
Ford wanted to develop an easy-to-use
in-car infotainment system that would
allow users to make hands-free calls and
control music and other functions with
simple voice commands.
Solution
Windows Embedded Automotive
provides Ford with a market-proven
platform for building an infotainment
system, including powerful development
tools that cut time to market while
inspiring innovation.
Benefits
 Proven platform that meets automotive
standards for reliability
 Fast development with reference
hardware design
 Agnostic approach to consumer
electronics
Situation
Ford Motor Company, a global automotive
industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich.,
manufactures and distributes automobiles
across six continents. With about 163,000
employees and about 70 plants worldwide,
the company’s automotive brands include
Ford and Lincoln.
In 2005, the face of the auto infotainment
market was changing rapidly with the
introductions of GPS systems, MP3 music
players, and mobile phones – and Ford
seized the opportunity to meet growing
consumer demands for in-vehicle
connectivity.
“Consumers were not only having a hard
time using mobile devices like iPods and
cell phones once they got behind the wheel
of a vehicle, they were frustrated because
the technology they found in cars at the
Ford and Lincoln dealerships was behind
what they could find in an electronics store
across the street,” recalls Gary Jablonski,
manager, Infotainment Product
Development Team, Ford Motor Company.
The company had a working level initiative
to develop a flexible multi-purpose
computing platform that would allow Ford
to leverage faster software development
times to keep pace with the dynamic
consumer electronics market.
At around the same time, Ford started
discussions with Microsoft about using
Windows Embedded technologies for an
integrated infotainment system. According
to Sukhwinder Wadhwa, manager, SYNC
Platform & Technologies, Ford Motor
Company, “Gary and I took the first trip up
to Redmond to meet with the entire
Windows Embedded Automotive team. We
were impressed by the robust Bluetooth
profiles, fast boot time, and easy-to-use
interface they demonstrated for us.”
One major hurdle Microsoft needed to
overcome was the question of whether it
could deliver the level of reliability required
to satisfy the special requirements
traditionally met by Tier One OEMs. These
include auto-grade quality and parts
scheduling, plus the need to run reliably for
decades or hundreds of thousands of miles.
Ford’s acceptance of Microsoft as a Tier
One automotive supplier was largely based
on Microsoft’s past experiences with Fiat
Blue&Me and other pioneering in-vehicle
telematics projects. “The Microsoft team
literally ‘forced’ a Blue&Me system into a
Ford Taurus and we showed it to every
major executive,” says Wadhwa. “That
demo helped us gain internal approval.”
Microsoft representatives sat on Ford’s
Digital Lifestyle Council, which facilitated
key exchanges between the companies.
Microsoft intimately learned about the
automotive industry and Ford deepened its
acumen of the software market—which in
turn fueled their collaboration on SYNC.
“One of the key challenges of the auto
industry is to design products with the
reliability of aerospace at an affordable,
mass-market price,” says Jim Buczkowski,
Director of Global Electrical & Electronics
Systems Engineering, Ford Motor
Company. “We had confidence that the
native real-time OS of Windows Embedded
Automotive could deliver a high level of
reliability at a practical cost.”
Solution
The decision by Ford to use Windows
Embedded Automotive to power a low cost
infotainment device with broad market
appeal was the first development
breakthrough.
Both Ford and Microsoft used market
research to determine that customer
priorities in the car were shifting to media
devices and cell phones. “We concluded
that Microsoft had an agnostic approach
that would allow us to build a platform
connecting to any consumer device,”
remarks Buczkowski.
A second key innovation was the idea to
create a “gateway” that decouples the
automotive and consumer electronic cycles.
“The auto industry is like a slow turning
gear, whereas the consumer electronics
changes rapidly,” observes Buczkowski.
“The Microsoft platform serves as the gear
in between that can be developed and
upgraded to meet new market demands.”
“We had confidence that the
native real-time OS of
Windows Embedded
Automotive could deliver a
high level of reliability at a
practical cost.”
Jim Buczkowski, Director of Global
Electrical & Electronics Systems
Engineering, Ford Motor Company
The third key innovation was Ford’s
concept of enabling convenient hands-free
use of cell phones and media devices with
voice recognition technology.
“The development process began with an
existing reference hardware design that
helped shave weeks, if not months, from
our development timeline, “estimates
Jablonski. “The comprehensiveness of the
Windows Embedded Automotive platform
feature set also saved us from having to
develop dozens of components from
scratch. From start to finish, it took about
14 months to complete the development
project – we finished it right on schedule,”
he adds.
In March 2007, Ford introduced SYNC, a
factory-installed fully integrated in-vehicle
communications and entertainment system.
SYNC provides drivers with hands-free
voice-activated control over mobile phones
and digital music players, and automatically
connects phones and music players with
the in-vehicle microphone and sound
system. SYNC was the first infotainment
system to use new media transports to
work with the most popular media players,
including Apple iPod and Apple iPhone,
Microsoft Zune, and MTP devices.
In 2007, Ford introduced SYNC across
multiple mainstream and luxury vehicle
product lines, including the new 2008 Focus
sedan and coupe. “We wanted to
democratize the technology and give
people access to technology that makes
their driving experience better,” states
Buczkowski. “This ‘go big’ strategy
differentiated Ford.”
A $70 million co-branded and integrated
marketing campaign leveraged the global
recognition of Microsoft brand name with
the tagline “SYNC, powered by Microsoft.”
By the end of 2009, SYNC was available on
over 20 of Ford’s passenger vehicle models,
with the feature “take-rate” averaging
approximately 70% across the line-up.
Benefits
Windows Embedded Automotive has
delivered several important business and
technology benefits to Ford and its
customers.
Ford enjoys a more nimble supply chain
since it works directly and collaboratively
with its software supplier, instead of having
this key relationship controlled by Tier One
OEMs. “This is a more cost-effective
relationship and it means that Microsoft
makes platform technology choices that are
best for Ford instead of the Tier One,”
states Buczkowski.
Windows Embedded Automotive
technology allows Ford to be more
innovative and speed up its product refresh
cycle. “Windows Embedded Automotive’s
rich development tools and API allow us to
develop new applications that synchronize
with social media programs, such as textto-speech access to Twitter via OpenBeak,”
says Wadhwa. “Pandora Internet radio is
another example of a cutting edge
application within SYNC.”
SYNC-equipped 2008 Ford Focus
Another revolutionary benefit of using
Windows Embedded Automotive is that
Ford customers can use a built-in USB port
and their own memory stick to update
SYNC software with these new and exciting
applications without having to take their
vehicle to the dealer.
SYNC, based on Windows Embedded
Automotive, delivers real value to Ford
customers. Ford has tracked business
success metrics from several sources and
reports that the turnover rate of SYNCequipped vehicles on dealer lots is twice
that of vehicles without SYNC. Also, the
resale value of SYNC-equipped vehicles is
more than $200 greater than vehicles
without SYNC. And after receiving SYNC
demonstrations, 80% of potential
customers report it improves their opinion
of Ford, while 70% are more likely to
consider purchasing a SYNC-equipped
vehicle.
“SYNC is absolutely impacting our top line
revenue in terms of improved vehicle sales,
net transaction pricing, and incremental
revenue from SYNC services,” calculates
Paul Mascarenas, Vice President of
Engineering for Global Product
Development, Ford Motor Company.
“Customers clearly want SYNC and are
prepared to pay for it because we delivered
great technology at excellent value for the
money. This positive revenue generation is
“SYNC drives traffic to our
dealers because people hear
about it and then they want
to experience it for
themselves. People will
consider buying a Ford
vehicle specifically because of
SYNC, which is something we
didn’t expect even in our most
optimistic forecasts.”
Jim Buczkowski, Director of Global
Electrical & Electronics Systems
Engineering, Ford Motor Company
the hard line connection to Ford’s
corporate business plan,” he adds.
Buczkowski concurs: “SYNC drives traffic to
our dealers because people hear about it
and then they want to experience it for
themselves. People will consider buying a
Ford vehicle specifically because of SYNC,
which is something we didn’t expect even
in our most optimistic forecasts.”
In a noteworthy milestone, SYNC was
installed on the 3-millionth vehicle less
than a year after hitting the two million unit
milestone. “In the space of just three years,
from 2005-2008, we went from last place to
first place with regard to customer
satisfaction with our in-vehicle infotainment
system,” says Jablonski.
Ford’s ability to surprise and delight
customers with SYNC is most evident in the
voice recognition technology developed by
Nuance. Among Ford customers who have
SYNC on their vehicles – and use its voice
command features – 87% are satisfied with
how the system operates, and 88% would
recommend the purchase of a vehicle with
SYNC to others. Hands-free calling is used
daily by two-thirds of SYNC users, with 89%
using the feature at least once a week.
“We know that more than half of drivers
use SYNC’s voice-activated dialing features,
helping them keep their eyes on the road
and hands on the steering wheel,” says
Wadhwa.
Looking Ahead
In August 2010, Ford launched the secondgeneration version of SYNC, MyFord Touch,
demonstrating the extensibility and
innovation of the Windows Embedded
Automotive platform.
MyFord Touch first launched on the 2011
Ford Edge (and as MyLincoln Touch on the
2011 Lincoln MKX), then on the 2011 Ford
Explorer, followed by the all-new 2012 Ford
Focus. MyFord Touch redesigns the in-car
interface, mirroring how consumers interact
with most devices in their lives by using
touch-sensitive buttons, touch screens and
voice recognition.
Microsoft also continues to innovate in the
in-vehicle technology space, adding more
of the features wanted by both automobile
drivers and manufacturers. Windows
Automotive 7, introduced in October 2010,
builds on best-of-breed phone, media, and
radio support. It also introduces new
capabilities that enable vehicle-centered,
connected software-plus-services designed
to transform driver and passenger
experiences.
Windows Automotive 7 offers an extensible
UI framework via Silverlight for Windows
Embedded. User experiences can be refined
rapidly with the Expression Blend-Visual
Studio toolset on the desktop and
deployed unchanged to the target device.
Developing immersive experiences with
natural input is eased by an HMI Bezel
simulator and integrated multi-touch input
capabilities throughout the OS.
A new Microsoft TellMe Speech Engine
stack is fully integrated for voice controlled
interfaces. There is support for a broad set
of worldwide languages, while SAPI 5.41
support creates a pluggable architecture
for choice of speech recognition and textto-speech engines.
Windows Embedded is a high-performance and
highly reliable family of products and services
used by innovative developers and OEMs to
deliver devices that stand out through rich user
experiences and seamless connections to the
world of Windows. The Windows Embedded
family of products includes Windows Embedded
Automotive, Windows Embedded Compact (the
next generation of Windows Embedded CE),
Windows Embedded Enterprise, Windows
Embedded Handheld, Windows Embedded
POSReady, Windows Embedded Server, and
Windows Embedded Standard.
For more information visit:
www.microsoft.com/embedded
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products
and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information
Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the
Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877)
568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-ofhearing can reach Microsoft text telephone
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the
United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada.
Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please
contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access
information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about Ford products and
services, visit the Web site at:
www.ford.com
Looking back at the success achieved by
the joint efforts of Ford and Microsoft,
Mascarenas concludes: “Ford SYNC has
helped us grow, strengthen, and
differentiate our company’s brand in North
America – as well as enhance the
perception of Ford as an innovator. We’re
looking forward to extending both SYNC
and our brand to global markets.”
Keywords: Automotive; In-vehicle infotainment
Software and Services
Hardware
Windows Embedded Automotive
 Microsoft Visual Studio


Windows Embedded
400MHz Freescale i.MX31L processor
with an ARM 11 CPU core
 256MB of 133MHz DDR SDRAM; 2GB of
NAND flash memory
 Bluetooth; USB; high-speed and
medium-speed vehicle CAN-buses
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published January 2011