On Apr 27, 2008, at 8:24 AM, Doug LaRue wrote:
That that is just silly thinking. Hey, has BMW finally swapped out
the Windows
based i-Drive from that one 700 series? I know that after two years
of constant
problems with the Windoes based system, they announced Linux bases
systems
would rolled out on all models except the 700 series. Wanna bet they
had a
contract with Microsoft which forbid them from swapping it out?
They'll most
likely take Windows to the grave in this project but who knows,
there's always
a first time for everything. ;-)
As someone who drives / hacks on this car I can almost guarantee that
the reason is
cost and not a contract with MS. You can't even replace so much as a
break pad or
head light with out re-encoding the car. The entire car is run off of
this system so replacing
the underlying OS would likely cause huge issues with other modules
that would need replaced
as well. If we assume it would require new hardware we are talking
$2-5k in hardware costs,
and another $2-4k in install costs that they would have to eat on
every 7 sold in the US.
Even if we assume they use the same hardware all around $2-4k per car,
and new problems
could be introduced, which they are very sensitive to; I have been
trying to get the 750-style software
on my 745 and no one even knows what modules need replaced -- you
would think it's just software
but no such luck.
Anyway my point is I think this is more of a technical feasibility
issue than a contract one.
Best,
~Nandor
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