Well thats the yahoo report anyway!
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/why-ford-is-dumping-microsoft-162...

Though... this might just mean that FORD is still stupid.... drop MS for Blackberry??? wtf??????

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2014/02/ford-may-dump-micro...


It is always popular to bash on Microsoft,  

it's a lot of fun.  

And it is so so easy ......





To recover the big black JD POWERS dissatisfaction mark from the in-car computer system being so stupid and butt fug-ugly to use, me,  I'd see about getting either Google or Apple to do me up a simple, easy to use nav system, not Blackberry.    

Google has a lot more of navigation mapping type skills but Apple is likely much better with the people side of the equation .....  

Then I would do all my user testing with women to make sure it was completely intuitive and totally sensible to the female perception.    

Test it only with women because they are the ones who actually use the things.  

Real Men, not so much ...    

Blackberry, not so much good with either side of that situation.   I hear they are a lot cheaper though, as Blackberry is certainly scrounging for any coins they can find right now.   (visions of a blind beggar rattling coins in a tin cup ...)

If I were Ford and good 'ol Microsoft (by just acting like they were being Microsoft) moved me down in the JD Powers Satisfaction Rating System from #1 or #2 position all the way down to mid-pack or below, all by themselves with just that one single piece of MS BS style arrogance with the nav system -- hell yes, I'd fire them too.  

Fire them twice.   At least twice.

Mebbe fire them three-four times ....   heck, I'd fire them once a quarter until everyone had heard repeatedly they had been fired again and again and again.


     


Ford should have known better, MS historically screws over EVERY business partner they ever had in some fashion or another.    

And they only ever get every third one right, with a total turd and a sorry fix-up in between each and every good one.

All the rest of the Surface RT vendors have already moved their dead stagnant warehouse inventory by scraping the machines and loading Android or another FOSS OS on to the bare hardware.   $150 price tags then cleared all the dead RT stocks out of the warehouses fairly quickly.

Microsoft locked their own RT units down with hardware locks so nobody could take RT off of them and replace it with something better.

Now they are stuck .....  $200 and free shipping won't even move a 32 gig unit for them.



http://www.ebay.com/itm/Windows-Surface-Tablet-with-32GB-Memory-10-6-Surface-...


Prediction time -- MS will have to unlock the machines just to be able to sell them at any price.

At Barcelona the CEO and head dudes at ARM have done some really good open forums where they tried to answer anything they were asked.   Some interesting information came up, about Intel having to pay to have phones designed that used their chips and when the Intel support dollars stopped so did the phones.

VRZ: What exactly is wrong with Intel’s SoC as far as graphics goes?

The feedback we’re getting is that the user experience performance wise is not up to scratch.  So, will they fix that? Yeah. They’ve got some great people. The competitive thing about Intel is less about technology and what they do with all those dollars in their bank account. What do they call it? Contra revenue? This says something of what they think about their technology.

What we saw with Clovertrail is they paid loads of cash to Lenovo to get the chip on the marketplace in a device. After the money was gone Lenovo said, ‘now we need to have a phone that actually ships in volume.’ Then they went with Qualcomm.

That was that generation. They’re continuing to get better. We fully expect on the high-end Intel will enter the space and will gain market share. I’ve been predicting it for multiple years, I keep having to delay it a year, but I think with Haswell technology they are there.

VRZ: Do you see a realistic threat to the Android ecosystem from Tizen or Firefox OS?

The operators want something else.  They don’t want all those app dollars to go to Apple or to go to the Android community. They keep looking at this third OS, even Ubuntu. It’s just very hard to see [a threat to Android].

Inside ARM the jury is out. I’m actually in the camp that says there will be a third OS. The reason why I think there will be a third OS is because of China. Because I think they’ll pick something – be it Ubuntu or something else – and I think it’s the one place that has the critical mass to [generate change].


I have to agree on Ubuntu -- the Chinese Military want a cell phone that operates in encrypted secure mode all the time.   Unbuntu did their encrypted desktop software for them, so it is natural that they should give Ubuntu preference on the encrypted phone stuff, especially if Ubuntu can make the Edge trick actually WORK right ....

Then it becomes a no-brainer, just issue all the officers a phone and provide a place with a docking station and a flat screen and a keyboard -- you are done.  

Cost of issuing the docking station, flat screen and keyboard to an assigned desk space and then the cost to issue the encrypted phone to the individual officers would be MUCH cheaper than what everyone in the world is doing now.