Conventional wisdom insists that all the modern intelligence encompassing software, consumer electronics, social media, electric cars, and autonomous vehicles resides in Silicon Valley. And that today?s car companies, especially the three in Detroit, are heading the way of the buggy whip because their thinking is sluggish and their automaking craft too antiquated to keep pace with the rapidly accelerating connectivity, mobility, and automated-transportation movement.
Marques McCammon, connected-vehicle solutions general manager at Wind River Systems, recently burst that bubble at a suburban Detroit gathering of the world?s leading telematics experts. The word he used to pop obsolete thinking is ?partner,? specifically in the phrase, ?When you set out to build something that must work, you need a great partner.? In essence, success is more likely when West Coast and Motor City forces set their sights on the stars together. McCammon, who characterizes his early career as metal bending, cut his teeth in the car business with stints at Chrysler and the aftermarket specialty firms ASC and Saleen. Later, he was the chief marketing officer for the three-wheeler company Aptera, an electric-car startup operation that went down in flames in 2011.
Calling McCammon a master of landing on his feet is no exaggeration. Wind River (WR) is one of those familiar garage-to-riches stories. Founded in 1981 by an escapee from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, WR quickly became one of...