The latest salvo from the Genivi Alliance – a SWOT analysis of competing automotive operating systems – appears to cloud rather than clarify the existing automotive OS market environment. The future prospects for current and emerging players are described with little supporting evidence or insight. The report also concludes – from OEM and supplier interviews – that the Alliance’s assumptions regarding cost savings are valid without providing a detailed financial analysis of where cost savings may be achieved – ie. head count, lines of code, etc. Not surprisingly, the self-serving report concludes that Genivi will rule the market in the long term with deployments beginning in the 2013-2015 timeframe (http://tinyurl.com/29aly2t). The report initially sets out to provide a thumbnail view of current OS market leaders Microsoft, QNX, MicroItron, Linux and Android. Going without mention are Mentor Graphics, Ubuntu, OpenSynergy, Meego or even VxWorks (currently used by Peugeot-Citroen, Nissan and Volkswagen). Also missing entirely are Genivi members MontaVista and Wind River. Ostensibly, the goal of the report is to benchmark and/or handicap these various infotainment software architectures and their influence on in-vehicle infotainment systems; and to validate the cost savings claimed for Genivi’s code-sharing/recycling model. Missing is a detailed description of the actual software architectures themselves – ie. what makes one “better” than another. What is available in the report summary seems misleading such as a reference to Microsoft Auto booting slowly, which is also a shortcoming of Android, but which is also easily overcome. Also missing is a discussion of current market forces, strategic supplier relationships, recent mergers and acquisitions or potential mergers or acquisitions. The absence of these latter aspects means that Intel’s acquisition of Wind River goes without mention as does the merger of Intel’s Moblin platform with Nokia’s Maemo OS to create Meego – rumored to have been selected by Genivi as its infotainment platform of choice. (Press and Nokia reports have quoted senior Genivi representatives stating that Meego has been chosen for this purpose - http://tinyurl.com/2d46xls. No affirmation of this selection has come from any Genivi member other than BMW.) MontaVista’s acquisition by Cavium Networks and QNX’s purchase by RIM gets no attention in the report. Neither does TomTom’s decision to adopt the Webkit OS, a platform found in other segments of the mobile market such as Palm’s Web OS. (The report fails to note Bosch’s adoption of Linux or Visteon’s embrace of Genivi, Microsoft, QNX AND Ubuntu – hedging its bets.) These oversights are more significant than they seem as they suggest a lack of awareness of the symbiosis between mobile device operating systems and automotive hardware and software architectures. Additionally, the report repeatedly refers to “risk-averse” Japanese OEMs and tier one’s being hesitant to adopt open, Linux-based platforms – including anything from Genivi to Android.  This assertion is patently absurd given Clarion’s longstanding support of Linux. The report also paints a grim picture of QNX’s market outlook, suggesting the company’s app support is “difficult to configure” and that the company can be expected to withdraw from the IVI market entirely within a short period of time. This will no doubt be news to executives at QNX’s Ottawa headquarters where headcount committed to automotive projects is on the rise as are design wins. And the acquisition of QNX by RIM opens doors to automotive-related IP (ie. traffic apps) while adding access to a massive and growing installed base (ie. probes). Unlike all of the alternatives currently in the market, QNX currently offers a range of flexible, scalable solutions future proofed to support Adobe Flash, HTML5, Flash Air and Flash 10.1 and all mobile OS's. QNX is customer friendly with support unmatched by Linux-based competitors or Microsoft. By way of contrast, OEMs implementing Microsoft are finding they must enlist the aid of third-party developers (bSquare, Elektrobit, etc.) to customize Microsoft Auto to their requirements. Microsoft has left application development entirely to its customers and their partners. It is worth noting as well that QNX’s flexibility is an advantage vis-à-vis Microsoft. Where QNX supports nearly every potential application or implementation known to automotive engineers without favor, Microsoft is likely to push its Bing search engine, Silverlight graphics and other in-house offerings. The report notes that the next generation Microsoft IVI platform, Motegi (Windows Automotive Embedded 7), will launch with Japanese OEMs, though it provides no time frame. Microsoft indeed has at least two partners in Japan – Alpine and Mitsubishi – which suggests that either Honda or Mercedes may be implementing Motegi. The report neglects to mention QNX’s recent gains in Japan, including Panasonic and Denso, showing a deeper penetration of QNX into Toyota. In fact, QNX has benefitted handsomely and rapidly from its separation from Harman – immediately attracting attention from potential Japanese and Chinese customers. Where QNX is weakest is in developer support. This is precisely where Android shines. The report summary correctly identifies existing developers working on automotive Linux implementations – ie. Parrot, Continental and Roewe – and identifies the inclination of many designers in the industry to connect with Android but to keep it out of the central stack. The report also notes Google’s disinclination to support or endorse Android for automotive implementations, but leaves the door open to an embedded future for Android. (GM is thought to be considering an open platform such as Meego or Android for a future OnStar or infotainment launch.) But this points up a fundamental gap in the report, which is the wider context of the OS debate. Android and Genivi do not line up directly with QNX, Microsoft or Linux (pick your distribution). Genivi has always been positioned as a code sharing platform for infotainment systems - as such it has never been presented as a replacement for Microsoft or QNX. Android, similarly, is being pursued as an alternative for ultra-low-cost (entry level) platforms - typically those emanating from India and China - as well as a means for implementing revenue sharing models based on mobile applications in the car. The new Genivi report marks the first time the Alliance's platform is proposed as a replacement for QNX or Microsoft or any other OS, indicating a change in strategy for the group. This is where the group may be overreaching. Presenting Genivi as a one-for-one substitute for existing real-time operating system solutions is a different proposition from offering a code-sharing/recycling platform intended to reduce development costs. Obtaining industry buy-in to this vision will take 5-10 years, by which time the market may well have moved on to the next big thing. And as an industry coalition-driven solution, Genivi arrives untested in the marketplace. The report further attempts to validate Genivi’s vision for cost-reduced platform development, saying interviewees estimated IVI deployment cost savings of up to 50%. At the same time, though, the report acknowledges that initial implementations may cost even more than incumbent solutions. Justifying or validating proposed Genivi cost savings will continue to be a tall order for the Alliance. Conclusions: The Genivi Alliance’s IVI software architecture report provides valuable insights but is rife with glaring omissions, unsupported conclusions and errant assumptions. The report oversimplifies the automotive OS ecosystem and competitive environment and underestimates the influence of some incumbent players, such as QNX, and the emerging role of content and service aggregators including TeleNav, Inrix, Airbiquity, WirelessCar, TCS, ITIS Holdings, Navteq and Hughes Telematics. A few of these content and service providers were interviewed for the report. But not a single telecommunications carrier or handset maker – outside of Nokia - was interviewed. Even more obvious than these omissions, however, was the exclusion of both Audi and the e.solutions joint venture with Elektrobit - the single most prominent, influential and competing IVI platform in the industry. The oversight is obvious and unfortunate. The forces that are determining the future of the automotive IVI experience are almost entirely developing outside of the car, so a wider base of interviewees should have been considered. The single greatest weakness of the Genivi Alliance is its inward focus on the automotive industry as opposed to an outreach to the wider world of mobile devices and consumer electronics. It is possible for Genivi to “win” in the long run and “challenge” (in the report’s own words) Microsoft, but the Microsoft embedded solution will always have the advantage of developer support from across a broader range of industries and the design priorities that those other user communities will contribute. Genivi’s narrower focus is at once its greatest strength but, in the end, its Achilles heel. <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]--> Further insight: Smartphone Market Evolution and the Automotive Opportunity Implications – Mark Fitzgerald – Automotive Multimedia and Communications Service - http://tinyurl.com/34hldb5 Automotive Connectivity: Beyond Bluetooth Solutions – Mark Fitzgerald – Automotive Multimedia and Communications Service - http://tinyurl.com/2gx88eo

Where some see nothing but travail, others see opportunity. TomTom is among those in the latter group. As both TomTom and chief rival Garmin, in their recent earnings reports, admitted to flattening sales of standalone PNDs, the two have set out on divergent strategies.

 

For Garmin, the strategy is diversification emphasizing marine, aviation and outdoor recreation. TomTom, on the other hand, like an embattled ship captain at sea, is turning towards enemy fire – narrowing its focus on providing the best navigation/routing/traffic solution with connectivity as a wild card. In spite of the brilliance of its European strategy, though, the U.S. remains an Achilles heel for TomTom.

 

This week TomTom clarified its plans to implement a new open platform and push its connected device strategy. TomTom’s approach is not without risk, but no one can fault the company for being bold. When Google is breathing down your neck it is certainly time to be bold.

 

The cornerstone of the company’s new strategy is a reduction in the monthly fee for TomTom’s HD Traffic subscriptions from 9.95 Euro/month to 5 Euro/month. But there is much more to the campaign than a simple price cut.

 

First of all, TomTom is able to adjust its pricing because of a new deal with Vodafone. Where Vodafone had a revenue share in the past, it now receives a flat fee from TomTom. While the revenue share may have been satisfactory – as TomTom recruited 700,000 Live Service subscribers – the thinking is that the flat fee will make more sense for both parties as TomTom engages in a broad PND/navi connectivity campaign.

 

As part of the new campaign, purchasers of TomTom connected PNDs – beginning early in June (in Europe) -  will get a full year of free access to HD Traffic data. After that first free year, customers can subscribe at 5 Euro/month or annually for 49.99, a 10 Euro savings on the monthly subscription.

 

TomTom’s objective in launching this program is to increase the purchasing percentage of connected devices from 40% in 2010 to 60% in 2011 and 80% in 2012. Given the fact that the average PND/navi – by TomTom estimates – lasts 3-4 years before replacement, the company expects that 90% of its customers could be connected by 2014.

 

By TomTom’s estimates, that means a user population of more than 25M units reporting GPS probe data for traffic analysis on top of the existing Vodafone cellular hand-off data. TomTom and Strategy Analytics are certainly in agreement on a few things, chief among which is that traffic data is the single most important data element to navigation device users.

 

This analyst believes that TomTom’s HD Traffic is the industry standard for accurate traffic data. TomTom, not surprisingly, also believes this to be true and is expanding the scope of HD Traffic data to 16 European countries from 7, although the timeframe is unclear. Live Services will also be offered to a wider base of 14 European countries.

TomTom is a little unclear on which countries will get HD Traffic or Live Services and when. The company actually has a total of 30 countries set for Live Services launch within the next 12 months, 17 of which are expected to get HD Traffic.

 

Clearly, HD Traffic has become a key to TomTom’s strategy. It is a critical differentiator. But TomTom recognizes that competitors are working aggressively to integrate both their own cellular hand-off data inputs and GPS probe data. The new TomTom strategy appears to be targeted at cementing the company’s existing traffic leadership position ahead of the arrival of competitors.

 

TomTom’s Vodafone relationship is unique “force multiplier” for TomTom. The hand-off data not only gives TomTom an industry-leading traffic solution, it also opens doors to logistics business opportunities such as billboard, cell tower and store location and municipal and regional traffic management.

 

But TomTom’s ability to extend this advantage to the U.S. has run into intransigent U.S. carriers and existing players – AirSage and IntelliOne – that have already negotiated their own access to cellular hand-off data. This impasse is evidenced in the TomTom product plan which includes devices with “local” and “Euro-wide” data, but only a handful of models that merit a mention of U.S. data.

 

TomTom says its new campaign will eschew “ultra-low margin” products and price points and focus on mid-high segment products targeted at replacement buyers. The strategy appears to be an acknowledgement of two key issues:

 

#1 – PND/navi buyers are a unique breed and prone to replacement purchases. TomTom claims a high customer loyalty rate (80%) and clearly wants to win over Garmin customers.

#2 – Most of the growth in navigation is coming from mobile/smartphone and embedded navigation customers.

 

Which brings us to the final “fly-in-the-ointment” for TomTom. TomTom’s own market survey’s show traffic as the single most popular application for navigation customers, a finding corroborated by Strategy Analytics studies. TomTom also acknowledges in its own research that Google Search is the second most popular application.

 

While TomTom has opened up its platform – via its implementation of the Webkit OS – and plans to open an application store, the company will eventually have to reckon with Google. TomTom has no answer to the bottomless pit of POI data resident within Google.

 

TomTom’s community-based approach to map updates and POI data is a powerful answer to the strategies of OpenStreetMaps and Waze. But unless TomTom can find a POI or search partner to counter Google its bold new marketing campaign may come to naught.

 

Additional insights:

http://bit.ly/bMeg36 - Global Mobile Handset Navigation Forecast 2004-2014 – Nitesh Patel - Navigation and Location Opportunities http://bit.ly/aoQdpd - North America Mobile Handset Navigation Forecast 2004-2014 – Nitesh Patel – Wireless Media Strategies http://bit.ly/aHhWeV - Nokia & Google Shake Up $3.8 B Handset Navigation Market - Nitesh Patel - Wireless Media Strategies http://bit.ly/cc6O9K - PND Owners Unlikely to Discontinue Using Their Device - Chris Schreiner - Automotive Consumer Insights http://bit.ly/c5f65I - Automotive and Portable Navigation Market Forecast 2008-2016 - Joanne Blight - Automotive Multimedia and Communications Systems http://bit.ly/b5W8ZS - Nokia and RIM Push Into Automotive as ‘Apps’ Competition Mounts - Joanne Blight - Automotive Multimedia and Communications Systems http://bit.ly/9NoM13 - From Probes to Crowd to Community to Ads – Traffic Data Evolving Rapidly - Roger Lanctot - blog - Global Automotive Practice

TomTom interrupted the epitaph writers last week with a spunky earnings call and a stunning customer presentation ushering in a new portable navigation device architecture and strategy modeled on the mobile phone market. The earnings report was significant both for the company’s ability to parry analyst skepticism and its self bestowal of the title: “fastest growing European telematics company.”

 

Skepticism surrounding TomTom’s ability to continue to grow and do so in a profitable manner was laid to rest by the Q1 2010 report which showed a 26% increase in revenue and a profit. The revenue gain came in spite of declining PND sales overall with TomTom claiming market share gains in Europe and North America.

 

The skepticism was expressed by multiple analysts on the earnings call repeatedly questioning the short- and long-term impact on TomTom of smartphone navigation. TomTom executives were quick to point out that 10M navigation application downloads, as reported by Nokia, did not directly translate into regular, daily use of smartphones for navigation.

 

TomTom’s broader survival strategy became clearer from a quick review of the earnings report which showed its non-consumer lines of business – a newly created categy – capturing 31% of revenue in Q1 ’10, up from 24% in ’09. The non-consumer segments consist of TomTom Work, licensing and the automotive business. (TomTom reports a 40% attach rate for its solution at Renault and claims 10% automotive market share as its solution is extended to additional Fiat and Renault models.)

 

TomTom Work showed 41% subscriber growth year-on-year to 104,000, well short of the 300,000 subscribers targeted for 2011, but enough to justify TomTom’s claim of being the “Fastest Growing Telematics Company in Europe.” The figure is even more important when one considers this is one of the highest gross margin businesses in TomTom’s portfolio, according to the company.

 

To round out the rosy picture TomTom pointed to the 700,000 Live Service enabled devices currently in use by consumers enabling a range of service and content transactions (including sharing of traffic and speed cam data), all of which are also exceptionally profitable to TomTom, again according to the company. With its newly announced webkit architecture strategy and adoption of the smartphone app store model (http://bit.ly/9q1jIV), TomTom hopes to build this user base.

 

An interesting note to this effort to build the TomTom user base is the fact that TomTom says it will no longer provide quarterly reports of device unit sales or average selling prices. The reason for this reticence is the company’s stated intention to alter its business model to build the base of users. Clearly TomTom is alluding to the potential for subsidizing sales of PNDs along the mobile phone model – a strategy long toyed with by the industry but never fully adopted.

 

TomTom did not specifically confirm its intention to subsidize PND sales. But this interpretation is supported by the somewhat ambiguous comments expressed in the earnings call and in the context of its plans to build its subscriber base.

 

Once TomTom has brought its open platform and app store model completely into the marketplace, expect subsidized devices, particularly among the new, simplified TomTom Ease line. The objective is to build a larger user base producing a wider range of shared location information which will become increasingly accurate (traffic) and useful (user evaluations) as the subscriber community grows.

 

TomTom’s aim is to achieve daily relevance from daily usage by a wide subscriber base. To further hedge its bets TomTom is adding new automotive relationships – such as Ford’s announced intention to use TomTom maps and content – and continuing its expansion into emerging markets (Ukraine, Morocco, Mexico, and India) where further PND growth is expected. The pieces are falling into place for Europe’s fastest growing telematics company, which has chased away the skeptics once again.

 

Further Insight:

 

http://bit.ly/cMw4f1 - Solid Q4 for PNDs, but 'Free' Navigation is Shaking Up Monetisation - John Canali – Automotive Multimedia and Communication Service

 

http://bit.ly/bMeg36 - Global Mobile Handset Navigation Forecast 2004-2014 - Nitesh Patel – Navigation and Location Opportunities

 

http://bit.ly/8Yo4U6 - Nokia & Google Shake Up $3.8 B Handset Navigation Market - Nitesh Patel – Navigation and Location Opportunities

TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn must be reading this blog or we are reading his mind. In a post on March 6th (http://bit.ly/aVONfo), we suggested TomTom needed to open its platform to developers and adopt the app store model on a wider scale. TomTom announced its intention to take these very steps at its customer event this week - embracing the app store approach and offering apps to customers by the end of the year, according to a report on pocket-lint.com (http://bit.ly/b5t6jh). It is worth noting that TomTom was the first and only PND maker to create a connected community of users able to share content and map updates. TomTom's Home application also allowed users to purchase applications online. But the platform was closed to third parties, even though TomTom users could record and share their own navigation voices and favorite routes. The new initiative represents a radical shift and a bold gamble on an entirely new business model and hardware and software platform that brings TomTom into more direct alignment with the mobile industry. It also represents a further departure from chief rival Garmin which will still have a closed platform. The report quotes Goddijn: "What is happening here is a break from the past. We have a great infrastructure, but in 2009 we decided it wasn't good enough moving forward. We decided to break the code and move on to new architecture both on the device and the backend." According to the report, the strategy calls for deployment of a webkit-based operating system and the introduction of new technologies in all new TomTom devices in the coming month to "create a platform for ... both the consumer and automotive market." The plans represent a major overhaul of how TomTom offers its services and delivers its navigation software and a direct response to pressure from the mobile phone market where application stores have become the de facto standard for application and content distribution. The new TomTom platform, based on the open source webkit browser engine is to arrive before the end of 2010, though TomTom did not specify a date. The choice of Webkit is significant given TomTom's plans to broaden its footprint in the automotive market where an open platform will facilitate integration with automotive systems. The Pocket Lint report further notes that a separate TomTom presentation described how the company is already evangelising how apps like Wikipedia, tourist guides like Time Out and others, such as piste maps, might help people get a better idea of where they are going. And the company said it was looking at the possibility of adding augmented reality to the mix possibly as a third party offering via the anticipated app store. On the hardware side, the company is preparing the launch of the first device built around the new architecture: the TomTom Go Live 1000. In a drive to keep costs down, Pocket Lint reports that TomTom has opted for the ARM 11 500Mhz processor and a separate Broadcom GPS chip rather than a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor that promises to do it all. Pocket Lint says TomTom hopes to leverage relationships with Volkswagen, BMW, Fiat, Ford, Renault, Toyota and Daimler. TomTom says it will be able to allow car makers to customise the UI, use webkit to provide a "great" programming environment that makes it easier to talk to the other systems of the car (like the heating or air conditioning), as well as deliver over the air (OTA) updates thanks to built-in connectivity (ie a SIM card), something that will no doubt appeal to car makers, normally slow to implement new technologies in the latest models.