Mitsubishi Electric, BSQUARE, and Microsoft Sign Agreement
15 May 2000
Mitsubishi Electric, BSQUARE, and Microsoft Sign Agreement To Target Car Navigation, Home Networking Systems with Windows CE
BELLEVUE, Wash.--May 15, 2000--system support for Mitsubishi's M32R/CE 32 bit microprocessor
targeting Home Network systems and their own car navigation system
BSQUARE Corporation and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (Mitsubishi)(FTSE: 6503q.1) both announced today that they have signed a multi-year contract in which BSQUARE will develop Microsoft's Windows CE operating system support for Mitsubishi Electric Corporation's microprocessor, the M32R/CE(a).
Mitsubishi will use Windows CE in conjunction with the M32R/CE for a Home Network system and a car navigation system Car-Infotainment Device.
"Windows CE is revolutionizing the market for home network systems, car navigation and other information appliances," said Takashi Furumura, Project Manager, Home Network LSI Development Project of Mitsubishi, responsible for Windows CE and M32R. "By providing rich user interface elements and a complete network platform, Windows CE provides a framework for the next generation car information systems and completely new consumer Internet services. As a leading semiconductor manufacturer, home network designer and car navigation systems designer, Mitsubishi is committed to staying on the leading edge of innovation in these markets. We look forward to working with the experts at BSQUARE to help us adapt Windows CE to our high performance M32R/CE architecture to provide the platform for these new innovations."
"Time to market was absolutely critical," said Masahiro Noguchi, Manager, Internet Device Architecture Team at Mitsubishi. "We were also concerned with quality, for these car navigation systems will carry the well respected brand of Mitsubishi, the leader in car navigation systems. The units will be in Mitsubishi Motors automobiles as well as other luxury vehicles. There was only one choice as far as we were concerned in partnering on Windows CE. That partner was BSQUARE."
"We are honored that Mitsubishi has selected BSQUARE for such a significant development project," said Don Whitt, General Manager of BSQUARE Corporation. "We are confident that BSQUARE can provide differentiation and accelerate time to market for Mitsubishi's Home Network system and car navigation device. We are also pleased that this is a long-term contract for BSQUARE and we expect this to be just the beginning of the business relationship between Mitsubishi and BSQUARE."
"We are pleased that Mitsubishi and BSQUARE are working to bring these new systems to market based on the Windows CE 3.0 platform," noted Scott Horn, group program manager, Embedded and Appliance Platforms Group at Microsoft Corp. "Home networking and car navigation systems represent an opportunity for large numbers of consumer devices that can support a rich set of new Internet applications and services."
Under terms of the agreement BSQUARE will develop a version of the Windows CE 3.0 for the M32R/CE which will include tools and operating system support. Microsoft Platform Builder, Visual C++, and compiler support will be among the development. The project has already been commenced by BSQUARE, which has been closely working with Mitsubishi.