We spend all day trying to get customers on Ford Pass And the Account Manager Online account system more than anything else and believe me it is frustrating for all of us. and anyway IT isn’t in the U. S. Anymore. INDIA.
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Yeah, right! We'll be competing in software against Meta with FordBook, against Google with Fordtube(or Fordturd), Fordgle TowSearch bar and FordBlueCruiseCloud, and against MS with FordTrainStationOffice 365 (paying income tax to Detroit 365 days of a year).
STFU! Without vehicles we cannot sell sh!t... no accessories, no parts, no software, no subscriptions.
I understand you are a mo--n, just repeating the idiocy of the C-suite, but I want you to think on Apple for a moment. Imagine all the Apple environment, all the music and video ready to be streamed, all the applications in the store ready to be deployed... and now imagine if Apple stops producing the Ipad, Iphone, Mac and Apple TV... where would people use the Apple software and data? How many users would pay for a subscription? And more important, how much would be the valuation of Apple if they do that? What about if Apple does not stop producing their hardware, but their products are so ugly, dated and with an awful quality... How many users would pay crazy expensive prices for those? How much the subscriptions would be affected by the lack of customers?
Now let's go back to the Ford reality, and notice how the id--ts in charge are pushing for software while they don't care for the "hardware", AKA, our vehicles. We are pushing BEVs, which half of the American people reject them, and neglecting our ICE vehicles, some of them look ugly and dated. Our quality is in the toilet (King of Recalls!), while our prices are sky high. It is impacting the number of customers we have, and therefore, it will impact the software we can sell, and of course, it is impacting the bottom line. TBH, for a bunch of guys saying a car is like a phone, they are not even paying attention at the amount of resources and care spent by Google, Samsung and Apple on their hardware.
All signs are pointing now to a recession (which is the only way to get rid of inflation), where unemployment went up, record household debt, retail sales are flat, high income people are buying at Walmart, low and middle income people are buying more store brand items and at dollar stores. What are the chances we are going to find enough fools buying overpriced Ford junk to keep the company's doors open? And we are already carrying record company debt. Layoffs are coming, for sure, and usually I don't wish bad on anyone, but this time, I wish all those guys like @rhd+1tq4LheN, a lot of the managers and our C-suite would be kicked out to the curb, because they are the problem.
If Ford cannot build a good vehicle that sells, there is zero need for any software. Or are you saying that in the future Ford is planning on competing in Microsoft’s space or selling software services to all other OEMs?
Boeing rediscovered how serious the software development spend needs to be! Creating an app is few orders of magnitude lower than making sure the follow on systems integration and failure modes are rock solid.
Software is to become one of Ford's primary revenue streams going forward. In addition to services, subscriptions, and data.
Just the thoughts of a casual observer here. I've done a lot of durability and reliability testing over the years for the old school electro mechanical and structural designs we all manufactured. I also had to put up with buggy software and computer crashes from sh-t software sold to us by the likes of MS. So what I'm wondering is this: Are we all trying to create value by software enabled tech? It looks like easy money, until you start to think... this cr-ppy software issue on your desk didn't crash a car, forced a recall or held you hostage to a chip maker. If that stuff isn't alpha and beta tested rigorou$ly the problems it can create are scary big. Yhe software developers have never had a quality bar as high in their entire history, so what passes for them isn't good enough. Thinking about the whole digitalization path way to profits, what about supporting major systems with obsolete chips in 6 or 7 years? Yeah, aftermarket is somebody else's land of opportunity... I see unhappiness in John and Martha Customers faces.