The last frontier of smartworking? Go for the car: thanks to a Cisco and Ford agreement it is possible to transform the cockpit of a car into a real office. A revolution for those who now experience the problems of agile work every day.
Ford, the cockpit becomes an office
In reality, the project is more refined than it seems: after splitting the brand in two (Ford Model and Ford Blue, to separate the business related to combustion engines from that related to electric cars), here the aim is to revolutionize the experience of customers buying a car. In short, given the time spent stuck in traffic, the idea is to increase more and more different activities to do by car.
The concept of driving, in short, becomes more and more marginal (it seems crazy but it is so), even before arriving at the next totally autonomous driving. And it is a revolution, of course, very expensive: Ford has officially stated that it will invest over $ 50 billion globally between now and 2026 to develop revolutionary electric vehicles and bring them to market.
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And this revolution has already begun, especially in America where one of the reasons for buying the giant F-150 Lightning pickup is the fact that Ford does not consider its electric vehicles only as a means of getting around. It is no coincidence that the F-150 is able to supply energy to a home in the event of an interruption in the electrical supply: instead of using a generator or an uninterruptible power supply, the machine is used. And Ford doesn’t stop there.
According to Darren Palmer, Vice President of Ford Electric Vehicle Programs, the F-150 Lightning, electric vehicles are meant to be the next generation office space for hybrid work: “We want to bring human interactions into our vehicles. There is no reason why people shouldn’t use their cars as an office as they often have better sound systems, microphones and screens than you have at home. ”
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This is where Cisco comes in: thanks to the IT giant in its new electric vehicles, Ford has integrated a 15.5-inch screen and entertainment system called Sybc4A. It is a flexible system that uses HTML 5, like a website, to create new software experiences and deliver new features over the internet as they are released. Not only that: this system is capable of connecting to Webex. And soon, there will be a native Webex application right inside the Sync4A screen for a seamless collaborative experience.
“Thanks to Webex Audio Intelligence – they explain to Cisco – users can use the Webex ‘Optimize for My Voice’ feature so that remote meeting participants hear only the person holding the meeting, not anyone else speaking”.
But finally, we come to the “plane tree clause”: how is it ensured that the motorist engaged in a business meeting does not kill himself in a tree or, worse, massacre other road users? “We take the issue of driver distraction seriously and how we handle it in a vehicle,” said Darren Palmer, Vice President of Ford Electric Vehicle Programs. “We will make sure that any collaboration technology such as Webex is only used when the vehicle is stationary. , or if you are driving, in audio-only mode “.