At present, most on-board systems, including cars and trucks, are based on relatively closed proprietary software. These enterprises include research in motion (the company behind BlackBerry), primary suppliers continental and Google. GM hopes to change this situation through cooperation with software company Red Hat 。
On Tuesday, General Motors announced that red hat, a subsidiary of IBM, will lead the development of a new open source operating system based on Linux, which will support the cloud based customer service platform ultifi plan announced by General Motors in 2021. GM's ultifi platform will oversee everything from future infotainment system operation and battery management to the way the company's cars communicate with other vehicles, intelligent infrastructure and even homes.
So what's special about red hat's system compared with other on-board systems on the market? The most important difference is the continuous function safety certification system.
An automotive software developer must pass some security certification processes to ensure that its software is not only reliable and robust, but also can properly resist network attacks and similar threats. Security certification is expensive and time-consuming, and every major change or update has to be repeated. Red hat's system simplifies this process through another partnership with a company called exida, which handles authentication.
Scott Miller, vice president of software defined vehicles and operating systems at general motors, said: "GM is now a platform company, and working with red hat is a key factor in promoting our ultifi software development. Combining the company's expertise in open source solutions and enterprise networks will bring dividends, because our goal is to provide the most convenient software platform for developers in the industry. With red hat's operating system as the core driver of ultifi functions, the opportunities for innovation become infinite.".
