Automaker alliance will let cars be recognized as Android devices, seeks to dim Apple, Microsoft influence in automotive tech.

Google, automakers Audi, GM, Honda, Hyundai, and graphics chip maker NVIDIA have formed the Open Automotive Alliance to increase the Android platform to vehicles.

The coalition of technology and car companies aims to position Android in automobiles this year. The businesses hope to advertise innovation, safety, and a more intuitive user experience.

Sundar Pichai, senior VP of Android, Chrome, and Apps at Google, said in an announcement that bringing Android to automobiles will facilitate the combination of mobile technology into vehicles and supply drivers with a well-known interface.

The initiative should simplify developing mobile applications that run on or along side automotive electronics — in place of writing code to speak with many various proprietary systems, car-oriented apps can process data using common Android APIs.

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Perhaps just important, putting Android in cars looks prone to limit Apple’s alliance with automakers.

In June, Apple said that greater than a dozen carmakers planned so as to add support for its Siri Eyes Free technology, portion of its “iOS within the Car” initiative. Participating carmakers include: Acura, BMW, Chevrolet, Ferrari, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jaguar, Kia, Opel, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, and Volvo.

The first casualty of this conflict, however, can be Microsoft, which has partnered with Ford to power the carmaker’s Ford SYNC technology but hasn’t yet mustered a compelling response to the mobile technology stacks of Apple and Google and hasn’t rallied an appreciable collection of automaking allies.

Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester Research, in a phone interview said that Apple and Google present contrasting approaches. While Apple’s iOS within the Car seems interested in enabling smartphone use in cars, he said, “the Google approach appears to be about building Android into the automobile.” Sooner or later, he suggested, car buyers could have to make a platform choice when purchasing a car.

Gillett emphasized that the contest to integrate technology into cars goes beyond Apple, Google, and Microsoft. He pointed to Livio, a five-year-old Detroit-based auto technology company that Ford acquired last year. Livio aims to create an industry standard for connecting cars and mobile apps. He also pointed to AT&T, which on Monday announced that it has integrated its AT&T Drive automotive platform with Synchronoss Technologies’ Integrated Life platform, a cloud service for automotive communication technology.

Just as cable companies have sought exclusive content to prevent becoming sellers of undifferentiated commodity bandwidth, automakers like to avoid ceding the connection with their customers to technology platform providers like Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

“We’re seeing the start of a battle for the connection with automotive customers,” said Gillett.

Auto companies would really like to manage the data that comes from the connected car, Gillett said, but they lack the software skills and experience to regulate ongoing relationships with users of software.

Gillett anticipates shifts in auto technology revenue as partnerships form and alliances shift.

The challenge for automakers is determining how car systems can work with smartphones without ceding an excessive amount of value or control to smartphone makers. Consider that an in-car radio or media player is redundant in case you have a smartphone that may hook up with in-car speakers via Bluetooth or AirPlay. Similarly, car-oriented subscription services like OnStar can easily be offered from a smartphone, without the involvement of the auto maker, depending upon the provision of vehicle data and wireless connectivity.

Gillett suggests carmakers specialize in the original data and sensors car systems provides, just like the inertial data from car wheel sensors, while planning for the mismatch between mobile product lifecycles and cars that could be operational for many years. “You desire interoperability between the auto and the mobile device, but you’d like interoperability that enables for the numerous evolution of the mobile device,” he said.

Thomas Claburn is editor-at-large for InformationWeek. He was writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications akin to New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and tv. He’s the writer of a science fiction novel, Reflecting Fires, and his mobile game Blocfall Free is out there for iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire.

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