Reinventing the Luxury Class of the Automobile Industry: Mercedes-Benz Teams with Pivotal to Bring Connected Car App to Life

New Platform Helps World’s Leading Car Maker with its Digital Transformation, and Delivers a Unique Driving Experience

STUTTGART -- Oct. 19, 2015: The Mercedes me app will give drivers real-time information about the status of their cars through their smartphones and smart watches. Mercedes me was created on Pivotal’s cloud native platform, Pivotal Cloud Foundry® and Spring Boot, and supercharged by Pivotal Labs agile software development methodologies.

New digital platform to support Mercedes-Benz through digital transformation, raising the bar for the industry via a holistic experience for drivers.

FRANKFURT -- Oct. 19, 2015: Pivotal®, the company accelerating digital transformation for enterprises, today announced that it has been working with Mercedes-Benz to design and bring to life its first-ever connected car app that ushers in a new era of digital transformation. This new platform is designed to give drivers deeper insight about the driving experience—access to a variety of information about the status of the vehicle’s vitals, remote control of things like auxiliary heating, the ability to open and close the door lock from afar, a convenient navigation tool via iPhone and Apple Watch, and other new features.

“Daimler and Mercedes-Benz are pioneers and leaders of automotive engineering. Their commitment to learn Pivotal’s modern agile software development methodology and build the Mercedes me connected car app on Pivotal’s modern cloud native platform demonstrates they are now also a great software company.”

The release of the Mercedes me app further positions Mercedes-Benz as a leader in an increasingly connected world. Digitization has been a key strategic issue in all areas of the company for several years. Core to this digital transformation is rapid software development that will enable the company to compete and win in the luxury automobile market and support ambitious company goals—by 2020, all vehicles will be emission-free and will feature autonomous driving and deep levels of Internet connectivity.

To support these important company initiatives, Mercedes-Benz looked to the agile software development services of Pivotal Labs and Pivotal’s cloud native platform, Pivotal Cloud Foundry supercharged with the developer framework Spring Boot. Mercedes-Benz can now implement the extremely rapid deployment of highly scalable and flexible products and solutions in response to demanding customer requirements. Within the project, Pivotal Labs brings the culture and successful methodology of software development from Silicon Valley to Stuttgart and helps Mercedes-Benz adapt and further develop this know-how.

Scott Yara, Co-President of Pivotal, and Christoph Hartung, Head of Connected Cars for Mercedes-Benz, presented the joint project at the Car IT Congress in Frankfurt and explained the background of the collaboration. For more information go to: Kongress Car It