After All The Hype and All The Bucks, I Guess There Really Is No Business, Qualcomm and Ford to dissolve Wingcast Venture With a Loss Of A Cool $100,000,000 Or So

Editors Rant: For the past three years, since I learned to say "telematics" instead of telematrics, I have been saying out loud to who ever would listen that telematics is a "good idea but is it a business?". My opinion was(and still is)that this "from inside the car to the world" communication technology would have been a great big hit as a built in mechanical watchdog on cars of the 1950's 1960's and 1970's but today's new cars built around the world really don't need the, "well Mam your car told me that it would need new fuel injectors and the part you need will be waiting for you when you bring the car back here to the dealership...", heck no!, today's cars and trucks are like that pink bunny rabbit they "JUST WORK". Drivers who really and truly want their "telematics"(how bout a cell phone)to act as a concierge or a secretary, can get that service for a few bucks a months from the many entrepeneurs out there.

I have moderated and presented at least four Telematic Conferences and have always tried to get even one of my industry expert speakers and panelists to tell me and the audience "just what is the business model?" Well it’s now maybe a hundred million bucks later and Wingcast is going going gone...Hey Ford why not just keep on building exciting well built cars? Ford and the other car makers should invest in design and quality manufacturing, instead of these new age crapola ideas, lets see $50 Million lost on an Internet Venture and now maybe $85 million on Wingcast...a million here and a million there soon add up to real money...hey in the old days the OE's would scour the world for inventions that worked and then make an offer that couldn't be refused...it doesn’t seem like behemoths like Ford and the other car companies should be in the breakthrough business...hey guys leave the creative up to the guys and gals who don't get regular paychecks or 401 plans, apparently the right side of the brain works better in starvation mode.

Reuters Story:

SAN DIEGO, Calif., June 3 Wireless technology company Qualcomm Inc. said on Monday its joint venture with Ford Motor Co.'s automotive technology company, Wingcast, will be dissolved.

San Diego-based Qualcomm, which owns 15 percent of Wingcast, said it will take a write-off of up to $11 million in its fiscal third quarter related to its investment in the company, which was formed to provide wireless data services in cars.

Qualcomm said it will retain the rights to license the intellectual property developed by Wingcast, which based its systems on Qualcomm's Code Division Multiple Access wireless standard, the dominant mobile technology in the United States.

In a joint statement, Ford said it still believed in the concept of having wireless data services in the car but did not feel it needed to own a provider of such services, often called "telematics."