Ford’s announcement that it has hired former Apple services executive Peter Stern to lead its own services push is significant in many ways. These plans don’t seem to extend to media or content and shouldn’t involve paying to unlock features you already use. But the hire reinforces the argument that future vehicles will be platforms and it hints about Apple’s own plans.
Before he left Apple in January, Stern was seen as the successor in waiting to veteran Apple Services Vice President Eddy Cue. In his role, he led the evolution of services across Apple, helping build the $50 billion/quarter business it has become today.
What Stern will be doing
In a statement, Ford said Stern will lead work to:
Build out the business tied to Ford’s BlueCruise hands-free highway driving system and productivity and safety/security services, including those from the Ford Pro Intelligence business.
Imagine and deliver exciting new high-value services.
Lead services marketing, certain out-of-vehicle customer experiences, and Ford Next.
“I love creating new services businesses and this is the perfect chance to do just that,” Stern said in the same statement. “The auto industry is undergoing an unprecedented transformation, from gas engines to electric vehicles and from human to autonomous driving. At the same time, the basis for differentiation is shifting from the vehicles alone to the integration of hardware, software, and services.”
In May, General Motors hired Mike Abbott, Apple’s former vice president of engineering for iCloud services. In that case, Abbott was hired to lead a new software development arm.
What Ford isn’t doing
That’s a significant hire moving to significant company, so Ford hosted a media event to discuss the move. You can glance at the transcript of that call here. The approach Ford seems to be taking should inform any company attempting to build next-generation services to exploit the advantages of digital transformation.
One thing the company isn’t doing is exploiting customers, promised Ford CEO Jim Farley: “I want to make something really clear to the media because it’s a theme coming up in the questions that I really appreciate,” he said. “So, we at Ford … are not going to charge for things that don’t make sense for us to charge for. If someone has a heated steering wheel or heated seats, that is literally the opposite of our approach.
“We’re charging for making our customers’ lives better. We don’t really see us charging for content [and] there’s been some brands that have even charged for e-commerce capability. That’s not the direction we’re going as a company.”
What Ford is doing
In other words, Ford won’t make customers pay more for things they feel they already own. Nor is the company particularly focused on creating its own media services to compete with Apple Music, Podcasts, or anything else.
“We’re kind of going in a completely different direction,” said Farley.
For…
2023-08-15 22:48:02
Article from www.computerworld.com rnrn
