Submitted by “For the past few months, little noticed by the outside world, a team on Microsoft’s campus has been running tests with one of the swankiest machines ever to use the company’s software. Rather than sitting on a desk, this piece of hardware gets parked in a garage. It’s a 2006 Alfa 159, and it represents a new step in Microsoft’s effort to spread its technology beyond personal computers.” My take: Any petrol-head knows that this is like a match made in heaven– taking Alfa Romeo’s notorious track record concerning reliability into account. Note that this is a joke, so easy on the flames, please. I happen to be a great fan of Alfa Romeo (which self-respecting petrol-head isn’t).
Any petrol-head knows that this is like a match made in heaven– taking Alfa Romeo’s notorious track record concerning reliability into account. Note that this is a joke, so easy on the flames, please.
There’s no flames in that, and arguably, for those with Alpha Romeos it’s no joke. They are universally recognised here in the UK as having by far the worst dealer network possible, the worst servicing and repair, and very closely follow French car companies in awful reliability.
Not to mention the non-existent resale value…
And good luck trying to find parts locally if you ever need repairs. There is a reason that Fiats are in the shop all the time, and its not reliability — waiting on the parts to arrive from France.
Worst car I owned. Ever.
As for the features in the article such as voice activated dialing, routing calls through the audio system, bluetooth, steering wheel controls, auto-mute of music on incoming calls, OSD for dialing – my ’02 BMW has these. And I don’t even have the fancy stuff the ’06’ers have, like LCD, GPS, etc. The point here, Microsoft is late to the market.
As for the features in the article such as voice activated dialing, routing calls through the audio system, bluetooth, steering wheel controls, auto-mute of music on incoming calls, OSD for dialing – my ’02 BMW has these. And I don’t even have the fancy stuff the ’06’ers have, like LCD, GPS, etc. The point here, Microsoft is late to the market.
WTF are you talking about? BMW and Microsoft have been deploying Windows embedded for 4 years now.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/mar02/03-04bmwpr.mspx
Sigh. MY02 production year 3er/5ers didn’t have windows embedded. Next time check your facts. Or read TFA you incorrectly reference.
It’s still safe(ish) to drive, the Microsoft device is just for “infotainment”.
Although what if you sent someone one of those “STARE AT THE PICTURE REALLY CAREFULLY AND YOU WILL SEE A GHOST!!!!LOL!!!!!” mails. The person views it in their car, freaks out, drives off the road, crashes and dies. Quite possible really.
Two companies that place flash over function.
Too bad Toyota and Honda don’t do software.
Maybe here in Italy it’s a different story with dealers, but I own an Alfa Romeo 147, and I’m proud of it, but I shiver reading about microsoft software on it
Thing gets worse if you put it on a Fiat instead…..brrrrrrr
roads are already a dangerous place
I had a Fiat when I was in High School.
I found out that Fiat stood for Fix-It-Again-Tony.
Most unreliable car I ever owned.
Proof of Alfa (err the Fiat empire) is utter crap in reliability, is the fact that they along with the French are non-existant in the US of A.
It’s unfortunate too, cause I’d love a brera, even if most of my ownership of the vehicle involved waiting for parts.
From article: “The software doesn’t control operation of the vehicle itself, just the “infotainment” system, as it’s called.”
Well, I’m impatiently waiting for [average desktop] software to control the entire vehicle. Imagine 16 port USB hub, connected to engine, transmissinon, brakes, steering etc with thin shiny USB cables; semi-transparent sidebar on the front window, displaying remaining fuel, weather conditions outside and latest OSNews headlines; handy XML helper for configuring seats appearance on-the-fly…
“Windows was unable to locate software for the device: Steering Wheel. If your hardware came with a CD, please insert it now.”
Here’s what the car would say if it were running Linux 🙂 :
/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: Shared object “libstwheel.so.13” not found, required by “libinftain.so”
My understanding is that FIAT is more or less bankrupt as a company, in such bad shape that even GM wouldn’t buy them. (GM is a notoriously stupid American company that gruesomely dismembered a young, successful brand – Geo – in order to redistribute its talent among old, withering brands.)
But this was what I read a year or a year and a half ago. Have things changed?
FIAT has returned in the green, as a whole, actually.
And the GM stuff was… well.. the best scam in history.
GM had to pay BILLIONS just to NOT buy FIAT… that’s pure genius! 🙂
…still makes crappy cars, but the MultiJet diesel engine is very, very good, expecially the 1.3 litre for small cars: they are licensing it to other car makers in fact.
what an ugly car…
Luckily in India we have very bad repo about FIAT. Hardly anyone buys it. Currently Honda, Toyota, Ford and Hyundai are ruling the scene.
FIAT is famous for extremly bad service ( even by Indian standards — I have seen much better in US ), arrogant dealers, no spares and highly prone to breakage.
The plus point is that the initial cost is very less compared to others.