[Corbu]

Tune into this Thursday?s Webcast of the BlackBerry Security Summit | Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog

Starting at 9 am ET, you can watch the live webcast at www.blackberry.com/LiveEvent. Visit it today, though, and you can download a free copy of our 100-page e-book, The Definitive Guide to Enterprise Mobile Security.

[BACK-2-BLACK]

Don't shoot the messenger, but just came across this...



More layoffs at BlackBerry


by CHRISTINE CLARK
Posted Jul 20, 2015 11:58 am EDT

"A number of jobs have been cut at BlackBerry.

The company would not confirm how many layoffs have been made only that they are �reallocating resources in ways that will best enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities.�

In an email to 570 News the Waterloo-based company says, �as a result, some employees have been impacted.�

Read the full statement below:

As BlackBerry moves into the next stage of its turnaround, we remain focused on driving efficiencies across our global workforce. Our intention is to reallocate resources in ways that will best enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities while driving toward sustainable profitability across all facets of our business. As a result, some employees have been impacted. We know that our employees have worked hard on behalf of our company and we are grateful for their commitment and contributions."

[donmateo]

More layoffs at BlackBerry


by CHRISTINE CLARK
Posted Jul 20, 2015 11:58 am EDT

"A number of jobs have been cut at BlackBerry.

The company would not confirm how many layoffs have been made only that they are �reallocating resources in ways that will best enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities.�

In an email to 570 News the Waterloo-based company says, �as a result, some employees have been impacted.�

Read the full statement below:

As BlackBerry moves into the next stage of its turnaround, we remain focused on driving efficiencies across our global workforce. Our intention is to reallocate resources in ways that will best enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities while driving toward sustainable profitability across all facets of our business. As a result, some employees have been impacted. We know that our employees have worked hard on behalf of our company and we are grateful for their commitment and contributions."

Ouch, sorry for those employees. Hopefully BlackBerry has stopped the bleeding, but it sounds like there's still work to do.

Posted via CB10

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Ouch, sorry for those employees. Hopefully BlackBerry has stopped the bleeding, but it sounds like there's still work to do.

Posted via CB10

Like mothballing the hardware division.... They are pretty much turning everything over to their Manufacturing Partners.

But as long as revenues go down, spending has to also go down to match it.... Think staying out of the RED is a must for Chen.

[BACK-2-BLACK]

Blackberry is now on Samsung's list of partners

https://www.samsungknox.com/en/partners

[Corbu]

Blackberry is now on Samsung's list of partners

https://www.samsungknox.com/en/partners

Good one, B2B!

Description / MDM Vendor

MDM Vendor Partner Information

BlackBerry BES12

BES�12 is the command and control center for the secured enterprise and the core of the BlackBerry� multi-OS Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solution. BES12 helps you manage enterprise mobility, across BlackBerry�, iOS, Windows Phone� and Android™ including Android™ for Work & Samsung KNOX™. BES12 and Samsung KNOX™ provide an integrated solution that brings together the secure connectivity and class-leading device, applications and data management capabilities.

[BACK-2-BLACK]

Ford Sync 3: better and faster, if not a standout

By Bill Howard on July 17, 2015 at 1:53 pm



Ford Sync 3 is okay now. It took eight years and three tries to take a great idea and give it usability, speed and — we hope — freedom from glitches. Even if you don’t fall in love with Sync 3, it’s not going to keep you from buying a Ford this time around.

Ford Sync 3 ships this summer on the Ford Escape compact SUV and Ford Fiesta subcompact sedan. By the end of 2016 it will be on all Fords and Lincolns, called Sync 3. The companion terms MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch are banished. Here’s our take on Sync 3 based on hands-on driving in an Escape and simulators.



What Sync 3 does: better interface, faster execution

With Sync 3, Ford adopted a three-windows view (left photo above) with a tool tray across the bottom. Ford calls them zones. The left window is navigation, the upper right audio, the lower right phone. The tool tray shows direct access buttons for media, climate, phone, navigation, apps, and settings. At the top is the home screen button (the blue house), left-right temperature settings, clock, outside temperature, and Bluetooth connection. The old Sync (above right) divided the screen into four quadrants, adding climate control.

What you don’t see is the speed of response. When you type in a navigation address using the onscreen keyboard, Sync and the processor keeps up with your finger presses. Even on Sync 2 cars shipping now, there’s a maddening delay: Press the M key, wait a half-second for the keyboard to ungray and be ready, press A, wait, press P, wait, until you type in Maple. A new capacitive-touch screen does a better job of recognizing your finger press.

The bells and whistles are more numerous and better. This Sync uses smartphone gestures such as swipe and pinch to zoom. In an address book, you can swipe through the alphabet rather than scrolling and scrolling to get to the W-X-Y-Z names. One Box Search lets you type in a POI and still get a hit without getting the name entered perfectly. When you rotate the volume knob, the volume setting setting shows up, mostly visibly, in the display.

Sync 3 is built around the QNX operating system owned by BlackBerry, the most-used operating system for car infotainment. This replaces Microsoft Auto, a variant on Windows, that was used in Sync 1 and 2. (There are still other pieces of Microsoft software in Fords, but not as the OS behind Sync.)



Plays well with others: AppLink, CarPlay, Android Auto

AppLink now automatically discovers smartphone apps including Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and displays their unique graphics and branding.
Plays well with others: AppLink, CarPlay, Android Auto

AppLink continues on in Sync 3. AppLink connects to apps on your smartphone — more than 70 — and controls them via the Sync interface. They include most streaming music apps, location sharing tools such as Glympse, and this-is-why-Americans-weigh-so-much apps such as Domino’s. If there’s a compatible app on your smartphone, Sync 3 discovers it automatically.

AppLink is a lot like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto except it’s already out and there are dozens of apps, not just, say one navigation app (Apple Maps for iOS, Google Maps for Android). Ford is pushing AppLink as a universal standard, calling it SmartDeviceLink. So far, Toyota has signed on. For automakers, it allows for more branding of the onscreen interface. In comparison, CarPlay looks pretty much the same everywhere.

That said, Sync 3 is supporting both CarPlay and Android Auto. No automaker can afford to ignore Apple and Google. It already uses Apple Siri, which lets you query the phone not the car by pressing and holding the steering wheel voice input button.



Sync vs. the competition

Sync 3 is useful, no doubt. But other interfaces work well now. If you want an *****-proof interface, it’s hard to beat the touchscreen-based Chevrolet MyLink with two big rubbery knobs, volume on the left, tuning on the right. It’s the polar extreme of Cadillac CUE, which relies on touch surfaces, somewhat to the detriment of the user. Most Ford Sync installations will include a pair of 4-inch LCDs inside the instrument panel that replicate information from the 8-inch center stack display. If the passenger expands the center stack screen to audio, the driver still sees navigation instructions.

On the Ford Escape, there’s a single button for volume in the console just below the display, with four rocker buttons for moving through lists or jumping tracks. Many users will find it attractive but less usable. Just no so unusable you’ll walk immediately to the Chevy dealer.

At the high end, Volvo raised the bar with its Sensus interface. It’s as if Volvo embedded an iPad in the dash, with one button to access options, then touch commands otherwise. The Tesla 17-inch touchscreen dazzles owners and passengers alike; there’s not much complexity, and what there is, the Tesla owner takes as a challenge to overcome.

At the very high end, the 2016 BMW 7 Series offers drivers more ways to interact than any other car: iDrive controller, touchscreen, hand and finger gestures, center stack buttons, and voice input. The information is displayed on the center stack, which can be split 60-40, a multi-information display in the instrument panel, and the optional head-up display. That’s on an $80,000 car, but it will ripple down to the smallest and cheapest BMWs within 2-3 years that cross over with the higher end of Ford’s lineup.

SYNC 3 has been designed to keep drivers connected to their smartphone, safely keeping eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.




Sync’s history: great idea, so-so execution

Color LCDs with voice input to control in-car infotainment — meaning audio/video from multiple sources, phone, and navigation — have been around since the early 2000s. Ford partnered with Microsoft in 2007 to create an affordable infotainment control system called Ford Sync for 2008 model year cars, a year after Microsoft and Fiat launched a similar concept called Blue ‘n’ Me (Fiat had exclusive world rights for a year). Second-generation versions called MyFord Touch and and MyLincoln Touch followed in 2010-2011; this was effectively Sync 2. The systems included an SD card reader for navigation, RCA jacks for video input, dual USB jacks, and five-way steering wheel controllers similar to game controllers or circa 2010 non-smartphones. Ford and Lincoln fell in love with the idea of capacitive touch controls and slider bars that were hard to control when under way. The first Sync systems sold for $695, later $395; there were versions meant to work (passably) with smaller LCDs not meant for navigation.

Sync’s problems weren’t apparent on brief customer test drives but all-too-obvious over time: keyboard input was painfully slow, with lags of a half-second before the driver could press the next key while entering an address. Sync crashed from time to time, meaning Microsoft managed to export the blue screen of death from PCs to cars. Some keypresses were ignored. Ford was forced to ship an update USB key to owners in 2012 for an update.

Sync had merits. Where OnStar charged $20-$30 a month for onboard telematics, Ford let Sync use your Bluetooth connected phone for automatic collision notification, called 911 Assist. Sync 2 (MyFord Touch) included a WiFi hotspot. Ford was early with ability to play and control selected smartphone apps such as Pandora, a precursor to Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

Media sources are displayed on screen and cover art is imported and displayed. Sources can be swapped by simple voice command.



The bottom line: Should you buy a Sync 3 car?

By the time Sync 2 came along, the interface was developed adequately that Sync was usable except that it was painfully slow to enter data, and it crashed from time to time. Cars already have enough ways to crash. It’s understandable why some owners dissed Sync and dissauded others from buying.

That’s all changed with Sync. The interface is improved. It’s faster. AppLink gives you far more applications than CarPlay or Android Auto will in the immediate future. The only thing that needs more time and testing is stability, to see if Sync goes weeks and months without crashing. Overall, Sync 3 is a big step forward for Ford.

If music, navigation and staying in touch by phone are important as part of your driving, then if you’re shopping a Ford, you should think long and hard about whether you should wait until the model you want has Sync 3. When it comes down to version 2 versus version 3, Sync 3 is worth waiting for.

[Corbu]

CBC Waterloo
BlackBerry cuts jobs after 1st quarter drop in phone sales - Kitchener-Waterloo - CBC News

An undisclosed number of BlackBerry employees have been laid off or transferred to a new position, a spokesperson has confirmed.

The Waterloo company declined to specify how many employees have been affected or what offices have been affected.

"Our intention is to reallocate resources in ways that will best enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities while driving toward sustainable profitability across all facets of our business," said a spokesperson in an email to CBC News.

In its last quarterly report released on June 23, the company reported a drop in year-over-year smartphone revenue to $263 million from $379 million.

The company, which only recognizes revenue on devices when they're sold to customers, booked revenue on 1.1 million BlackBerry smartphones during the period compared to 2.6 million phones the previous year.

[bspence87]

Funny how AppLink, which tries to accomplish the same thing as Chen's App Neutrality argument, is being praised in every review of Sync3.

Even more ironic, is that BlackBerry is behind both of them.

[Corbu]

CNET 20 Years - Page 14 - CNET

by John Chen, The Networker
Chen, previously the CEO of database software company Sybase, is now the chief executive of BlackBerry, where he faces the task of reinvigorating the smartphone maker.

Building a securely connected world

Embracing open, cross-platform tech is how we're preparing for a world where everything is a little smarter.

What a difference two decades in Silicon Valley makes. Look at the hardware side: We've evolved from gray-box desktop PCs and lightweight laptops to today's far-more-powerful, sleeker smartphones and tablets. On the software and connectivity side, we've transcended yesterday's restricted client-server networks toward today's open, agile Internet dominated by public and private cloud software and services.

I've seen plenty of change in Silicon Valley over my 35-year career here, the world's center stage for innovation. I've also observed that some things stay the same. For one, the vast majority of startups continue to fail -- 92% of startups, according to research. For every Facebook, there are 10 Friendsters. A unicorn today can lose its horn tomorrow -- especially ones that repeatedly fall down on user privacy and business security.

Meanwhile, organizations successful in one era can reinvent themselves for the next one. "I've seen this movie before" is what I first said when I joined BlackBerry 20 months ago. Look at IBM, HP and Intel. The key to thriving in multiple eras is creating an organizational culture that is always looking to the future and willing to make the hard decisions to adapt to it -- and never ignoring fundamentals such as poor security that will make your customers run away.

This is the biggest truth I've learned: Open systems always win in the long run. I learned this lesson at my first job as a chip designer, working on the Motorola 88000 processor. With its elegant, 32-bit RISC architecture, the 88000 was faster and technically-superior in every way to Intel's 8/16-bit 8086 processor. But IBM chose the cheaper 8086 for its PC; that decision spawned the x86 ecosystem that still exists today.

(On a personal level, I used to own a Sony Betamax VCR. My engineer's mindset at the time led me to choose the "better" product, not understanding that VHS's open ecosystem would win out.)

No longer. As soon as I joined BlackBerry, I said that vertical and closed was dead and declared that our present and future is bringing our distinctive strengths in security, privacy and productivity to the open, cross-platform world.

In the longer-term, enterprise mobility will be dwarfed by a far bigger industry -- the Internet of Things. Smartphones and tablets will be a mere fraction of the smart, connected devices in the IoT universe. Rolling out IoT devices is only one side of the coin -- we need software to manage and harvest and analyze data from them.

Does that give a leg up to IoT startups and other speedy, vertically-integrated innovators? No, and here's why: IoT includes both new sectors as well as established markets. For every connected home thermostat or smart power meter, there are 10 mobile devices, PCs, car-based infotainment devices, etc. IoT is engulfing all of these existing industries. That's why it's simultaneously youthful and mature.

Thriving in Silicon Valley may be a hyper-Darwinistic game, but nowhere do the rules dictate that tomorrow's winners must be highly funded startups. Rather, successful companies had the DNA to be winners once. Who says they cannot rise again? Because reinvention is as quintessentially American of a story as pulling yourself up by your bootstraps (make that Canadian, too -- there's no monopoly on innovation in this global village). That's a movie I'd pay money to see -- and it's one script I'm currently writing.

[donmateo]

I like Sync 3 from what I've seen, but yikes...that interface skin looks like Windows 95.

[BACK-2-BLACK]

.


WatchDox Pricing: https://www.watchdox.com/en/pricing/



We should see another small bump in software revenue from this quarter in the Q2 results.

The sale of WatchDox was finalized on May 7, with 24 days left in Q1.

This time around, the full 3 months of WD revenue will be recorded on BB's books

[BACK-2-BLACK]

.

Blast from the past, with QNX being referenced........







FYI:

Uploaded on Oct 6, 2009

It all started with a simple question. What happens if you connect a car to an ultra high-speed mobile network? Several innovative companies in very different industries were asking this same question. And when the ng Connect Program brought them together, the LTE Connected Car Solution Concept was born.

interesting how these ideas are now converging to reality !!!

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

.


WatchDox Pricing: https://www.watchdox.com/en/pricing/



We should see another small bump in software revenue from this quarter in the Q2 results.

The sale of WatchDox was finalized on May 7, with 24 days left in Q1.

This time around, the full 3 months of WD revenue will be recorded on BB's books

WatchDox was a startup.... They depended on venture capitalists for funding. I imagine that BlackBerry bought them for the technology that could be adapted to BES as a feature ADD-ON. Or maybe as part of BLEND or LINK to provide an extra layer of encryption when viewing documents remotely on secure networks?

So unless Chen cut their budgets to match their revenues... they could be a negative for a while.

[rampagingpanda]

Can we also agree that large hands are still in?
I am referring to Ontario teachers fund, and the Billionaires involved.
I cannot understand why someone would sell when the stock drops 30%. Could they have been playing options all along and made their money that way!? It would mostly be short interest I think.

My rookie mind is a tad puzzled.

I would definitely agree that the big players are still in. Primecap, OPP, Fairfax, are all value long term investors.

I personally took this 30 percent drop to double my holdings on the way down, increasing my dollar average per share.

While Chen did.. (as some here would say) have a mix up with the software numbers, monetizing the patent portfolio was always a goal, and I'm glad it's finally happening.

If Chen misses his estimates by fiscal year end I would be concerned, but at this moment I see value in BlackBerry at such valuations.

I think any naked shorting done at this level is suicide. But none of this explains why volume has tapered off to me.

PS: I'm quite the rookie as well

Posted via CB10

[Shanerredflag]

RBC needs a little shove in the right direction please consider signing :
https://www.change.org/p/rbc-royal-b...edium=copylink

Classically Posted.

[cjcampbell]

RBC needs a little shove in the right direction please consider signing :
https://www.change.org/p/rbc-royal-b...edium=copylink

Classically Posted.

Signed.

Posted via CB10

[BACK-2-BLACK]

.


Bit early for their article, no?


Earnings of $-0.07 per Share Expected for BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ:BBRY)

JUL 20, 2015 Markets Staff


"BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ:BBRY) is expected to report $-0.07 earnings per share for the current quarter according to Wall Street analysts covering the stock. The firm is expected to announce earnings on or around 2015-09-25, according to the most recent publicly available information.

BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ:BBRY) most recently reported earnings of $-0.05 per share for the period ending 2015-05-31 compared to $-0.02 for the one year prior fiscal quarter.

Taking a look at the earnings surprise factor, analysts had expected $-0.04 for the quarter. This represents a -25% difference when comparing to the actual reported number. The standard deviation of all EPS estimates immediately prior to the announcement of actual earnings stood at 0.052. This is based on the 15 analysts providing EPS projections for the quarter.

In looking at the near-term stock price target provided by analysts, BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ:BBRY) has a target of $9.402 on a consensus basis. A total of 18 Wall Street analysts projections have been taken into account in order to arrive at this number. The most bullish, or positive target sees the stock going to $14 within the year, while the most bearish, or conservative analyst sees the stock at $6. The standard deviation of stock price target projections stands at 2.081.

On a 1 to 5 rating scale where 1 represents a strong buying opportunity and 5 represents a strong selling suggestion, the stock has a consensus rating of 2.95, which is the average number based on the 18 broker recommendations. When comparing short-term sentiment, the stock had a rating of 2.95 three months ago."

[BACK-2-BLACK]

Look at this one... "RIMM" nomenclature is still alive and well with them!

And look at the very last word (no, not a copy and paste error on my behalf)



(facepalm)



BlackBerry Receives Consensus Rating of �Hold� from Analysts (NASDAQ:RIMM)

Posted by Seth Barnet on Jul 20th, 2015

"Shares of BlackBerry (NASDAQ:RIMM) have been given a consensus rating of �Hold� by the ten brokerages that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company.

RIMM has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Analysts at Zacks downgraded shares of BlackBerry to a �strong sell� rating in a research note on Thursday, June 4th. Analysts at Morgan Stanley reiterated an �underweight� rating on shares of BlackBerry in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Finally, analysts at Rosenblatt Securities initiated coverage on shares of BlackBerry in a research note on Tuesday, March 24th. They set a �sell� rating on the stock.

BlackBerry Limited is a provider of wireless solution, comprised of smartphones, service and software. The Company provides hardware, software and services that support multiple wireless network standards, it provides platforms and solutions for seamless access to information, including email, voice, instant messaging, short message service, internet and intranet-based applications and browsing. The Company�s focuses on four business areas, which include devices business, enterprise services, QNX embedded business and messaging. The Company�s products and services are BlackBerry Smartphones which includes BlackBerry 10 smartphones, powered by the BlackBerry 10 OS, and BlackBerry 7 smartphones, powered by the BlackBerry 7 OS; BlackBerry Enterprise Service which include BlackBerry enterprise service 10 and BES 12, QNX and BMM."

[Munx]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fairfax-...wer-1437177062

Prem and CPP are butting heads.

Posted via CB10

[Shanerredflag]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fairfax-...wer-1437177062

Prem and CPP are butting heads.

Posted via CB10

Don't subscribe so can't read

Classically Posted.

[Corbu]

Don't subscribe so can't read

There you go, Mr. Shanerredflag!

By BEN DUMMETT
July 17, 2015 7:51 p.m. ET

Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. and major shareholder Canada Pension Plan Investment Board are at odds over the multiple-voting-share structure of the global insurance and investment-management company. The rift is underscoring a wider debate among executives, investors and corporate-governance watchers over the best way to manage a company�s long-term growth.

Fairfax is asking shareholders to approve a plan to preserve the voting power of the insurance giant�s Chairman and Chief Executive Prem Watsa. But CPPIB, Canada�s largest pension fund and a leading advocate for good corporate governance, said Friday it plans to oppose Fairfax�s proposed plan as anti-democratic.

Often compared with U.S. investor Warren Buffett, Mr. Watsa believes keeping his voting control at 41.8% is crucial to maintaining his acquisition strategy that has propelled Fairfax from its beginnings 30 years ago as an ailing trucking-insurance company to a company with a market capitalization of 15.6 billion Canadian dollars ($12 billion) and operations in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

A Fairfax spokesman declined comment. A spokesman for CPPIB couldn�t immediately be reached for comment.

�It would result in a widened disparity in voting power between (Fairfax�s) share classes, contrary to the principle of shareholder democracy,� CPPIB said on its web site.

CPPIB�s isn�t among Fairfax�s 10 biggest investors but it is an influential voice in Canadian markets because of its size and the emphasis it places on good corporate governance.

The disagreement shines a spotlight on the growing debate over the best way to manage a company�s long-term growth. Proponents of supervoting shares argue it gives management and boards more freedom to make strategic decisions without havingto meet quarterly profit targets for short-term, share-price gains. But critics argue the supervoting-share structure can entrench management and foster poor corporate governance at the expense of all shareholders by giving them too much control.

Fairfax investors are scheduled to vote on the proposed amendment Tuesday and the company needs support from at least two-thirds of the votes cast at the meeting by holders of subordinate voting shares.

The pension fund, which oversees C$264.6 billion in assets, owned 249,000 Fairfax shares as of March 31, according to Factset. That would make it the insurance company�s 13th largest shareholder.

Like Mr. Watsa, CPPIB�s Chief Executive Mark Wiseman advocates long-term strategic thinking by a company over short-term decision making and he co-founded the Focusing Capital on the Long-Term initiative to help promote this idea.

Still, CPPIB believes Fairfax�s track record of long-term growth reduces the need to adopt the proposed amendments. Fairfax�s �track record of outperformance and clear articulation of its strategies have cultivated a supportive, long-term shareholder base which provides a strong foundation for shareholder engagement and can serve to negate the perceived need for a controlling share structure,� CPPIB said on its web site.

Mr. Watsa�s voting control has dropped to 41.8% from more than 80% in 1986 as the company has issued shares to fund acquisitions, a key part of its growth strategy. Mr. Watsa believes further dilution of his voting power through issuing of additional shares would threaten his ability to maintain Fairfax�s culture, the company has said.

To counteract that risk, Fairfax wants to maintain Mr. Watsa�s voting power even if the company issues more shares, the company has said. Fairfax would accomplish that by increasing the number of votes attached to the multiple voting shares to 50 from 10 votes a share, according to the company�s filings for the planned amendment.

[Corbu]

OT:
While we are on the subject of cars, one more from the WSJ...
Apple Hires Auto Industry Veterans - WSJ

Apple Inc. is recruiting experts from the auto industry, a signal that its efforts to develop an electric car could be gaining ground.

Doug Betts, who led global quality at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV until last year, is now working for the Cupertino, Calif.-based electronics giant but declined to comment on the position when reached Monday. Mr. Betts’ LinkedIn profile says he joined Apple in July and describes his title as “Operations-Apple Inc.” with a location in the San Francisco Bay Area but no further specifics.

Apple declined to comment on the new hire. It’s not immediately clear whether he is part of the company’s car initiative or if he will work on an existing product line.

Along with Mr. Betts, whose expertise points to a desire to know how to build a car, Apple recently recruited one of the leading autonomous-vehicle researchers in Europe and is building a team to work on those systems.

Apple, with nearly $200 billion in cash reserves, has joined Google Inc. and other nontraditional auto companies in exploring ways to make systems for vehicles or build entire cars that increasingly rely on sophisticated software systems to operate.

The interest of tech companies in the auto industry has sparked a race between Silicon Valley and traditional auto hubs, including Frankfurt and Detroit, to secure the talent and resources necessary to compete in a transformed auto industry.

Car-sharing service Uber Technologies Inc. poached 40 researchers from a Carnegie Mellon University program that competed with a range of auto companies and tech companies. Apple earlier in the year settled a lawsuit filed by battery maker A123 Systems claiming the Cupertino company attempted to use A123 employees to start a battery operation.

More than 17 million light vehicles are expected to be sold in the U.S. this year and about 85 million are sold annually around the world. Companies increasingly see cars as a mobile device on wheels, with billions of dollars in new revenue potential.

Apple has hired hundreds of people to work on an electric-car project code-named “Titan.” Because Apple hasn’t publicly acknowledged the work, it is difficult to gauge how serious its plans are for building an electric car.

Apple has targeted employees at Tesla to fill out its team working on the car, according to people familiar with the matter. On a call with analysts in May, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he hoped that Apple would get into the car business but noted that Tesla had recruited five times as many employees from Apple as Apple had poached from Tesla in the previous 12 months.

Earlier this year, Apple hired Paul Furgale a well-regarded autonomous vehicle researcher in Switzerland, and has begun recruiting other robotics and machine vision experts to work on a confidential project.

Mr. Furgale had been deputy director of the Autonomous Systems Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, or ETH. Mr. Furgale previously had led a European Commission project called V-Charge that sought to develop self-parking vehicle technology.

He didn’t respond to phone and email messages for comment. A member of the lab in Switzerland confirmed that he left the institute to work for Apple but didn’t have a contact number for him.

Mr. Furgale has begun recruiting students and researchers to work with him. Apple has hired a graduate student studying at the University of Michigan and has quietly recruited others.

Apple CEO Tim Cook appointed Steve Zadesky to lead the group, a veteran product designer and former Ford Motor Co. engineer. Mr. Zadesky was given permission to create a 1,000-person team and recruit employees from other parts of Apple, people familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Betts could be the first major automotive executive to join Apple with experience leveled more at the manufacturing side of the business.

For nearly two decades, he has worked in product quality and manufacturing at an auto company, first as a general manager at Toyota Motor Corp. and later as a vice president at Nissan Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, now FCA US LLC.

In 2009, when Fiat SpA took over Chrysler, CEO Sergio Marchionne tapped Mr. Betts to lead the company’s quality turnaround, giving him far-reaching authority over the company’s brands and even the final say on key production launches.

Mr. Betts abruptly left Fiat Chrysler last year to pursue other interests. The move came less than a day after the car maker’s brands ranked poorly in an influential reliability study.

[cjcampbell]

Ok... so pair that last paragraph with this "article" (yes, this is from a business oriented publication).

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/busin...heating-2015-7

Will I get to call in sick and blame the heat for my car stranding me?

Posted via CB10

[3MIKE]

RBC needs a little shove in the right direction please consider signing :
https://www.change.org/p/rbc-royal-b...edium=copylink

Classically Posted.

I signed to and I have an account there !!