Telematics and your car - the future
By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2007-05-12
Comments (5) Join conversation
When keynote speaker Thilo Koslowski of Gartner Inc. addresses the opening session of Telematics Detroit 2007 on May 22, his audience will include movers and shakers from a bewilderingly diverse group of players, and potential players, in the automotive telematics business.
Telematics is defined as "wireless exchange of information." Automative telematics covers such technologies as GPS navigation, mobile phones, automatic collision notification, onboard internet connectivity, remote diagnostics, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning systems and vehicle tracking.
All these technologies, and many more, are either already being used or are waiting in the wings for consumers to accept (or demand) them.
Telematics Update, a subsidiary of UK-based First Conferences Inc., has been hosting high-level conferences on automotive telematics since the beginning of the decade. The Detroit version is the largest of a series that spans the globe, each one addressing issues of converging technologies, standards, design and marketing.
The dazzling array of technologies conference delegates will grapple with in Detroit have been through many ups and downs over the past decade. In past conferences, Koslowski referred to the "hype cycle" that often bedevils first news of a new technology.
Gartner's Jackie Fenn, is reputed to have coined the term back in 1995 as a way of presenting Gartner's view on the prospects for emerging technologies. Fenn, and others at Gartner, wanted to recognize a phenomenon in which the media tend to jump on news about new technologies and project it to wildly exaggerated stories about how quickly they will become part of everyday life.
This cycle of hype inevitably results in disappointments which trigger disillusionment and skepticism - the "trough of disillusionment", as the Gartner guys refer to it.
This year's conference is expected to be on a much more positive note. Many of the previously hyped technologies are well out of the trough of disillusionment and ready for prime time.
Amongst this year's conference sessions will be one on the potential for a new generation of telematics to bridge the gap between manufacturers and consumers. Another will address the best strategies for entrepreneurs to approach manufacturers with ideas for new applications and technologies. There will be several sessions on marketing strategies, business models and revenue partnerships.
At registration package fees that start at about $1700 there are not likely to be too many casual attendees. However, those who do cough up the entrance fee for Telematics Detroit 2007 will get a chance to tune their antenna to the factors that are shaping the cars of the future. They will almost certainly get a 'heads up' on the shift from horsepower to information power in automobile design in the coming years, and some insights into what kind of machine will grace the display floors of the Detroit international auto show in the coming years.
And if they are serious players in the telematics game they will find themselves in networking heaven.
Login or sign up to receive email notification
when a comment is added to this thread.
NOTE - You can cancel at any time, and we have a strict privacy policy which forbids us from sharing your email address or other information with any third party.
