Panasonic goes global with QNX CAR platform

Paul Leroux

In the automotive market — or any market, for that matter — a product platform must be judged by its flexibility. After all, the whole point of a platform is to help you create multiple products or product lines, each with its own distinguishing features, while reusing as many components as possible. Done right, a platform lets you target multiple price points, multiple consumer segments, and multiple geographies, in the least time and at the least cost. If that doesn’t define flexibility, I don’t know what does.

Which brings me to Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America. They’re an international supplier of infotainment systems — Chevy MyLink and Chrysler Uconnect are just two of their products — and they need this kind of flexibility to deliver localized solutions  to their OEM customers in North America, Europe, and Japan. To help achieve it, they use the QNX CAR platform.

Flexible by design: MyLink supports
a touchscreen, voice commands,
and steering-wheel buttons.

To quote Scott Kirchner, vice president and CTO of Panasonic Automotive Systems, “we wanted a platform that would let us quickly customize our infotainment systems for a variety of markets and customer requirements — the QNX CAR platform, with its modular architecture and support for mobile connectivity standards, provides the inherent flexibility we were looking for.”

That quote comes from a press release issued just a few minutes ago. To read the release in its entirety, visit the QNX website. But before you click, remember also to visit the Chevy website, where you can find out more about the MyLink system. And did I mention? MyLink has been building quite the trophy case, what with the Best of CES 2013 Award it won in January and the CTIA Emerging Technology (E-Tech) Award it won in May.

Chevy MyLink system.
Images: Chevrolet

Chevy MyLink drives home with CTIA Emerging Technology Award

by Paul Leroux

There's nothing better than going home with first prize. Except, perhaps, doing it twice. Back in January, the QNX-based Chevy MyLink system earned a Best of CES 2013 Award, in the car tech category, for its intuitive user experience, smartphone connectivity, and instrument-cluster integration. And just recently, MyLink pulled another coup: it took first place in the "Automotive, LBS, Navigation & Safe Driving" category of the 2013 CTIA Emerging Technology (E-Tech) Awards.

If you're new to the E-Tech Awards, they honor innovation in wireless products and services. A panel of industry experts, reporters, and analysts conduct the online judging, which selects winners based on functionality, technological importance, and overall “wow” factor.

Congratulations to our friends at Chevrolet! And kudos for bringing such a successful system to market.

For more information on the awards, read the blog post from CTIA. For more information on Chevy MyLink, visit the Chevrolet channel on YouTube.

Image source: Chevrolet