GENIVI Alliance launches open source in-vehicle platform

Some of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers and suppliers have announced the formation of the GENIVI Alliance, a non-profit organization committed to driving the development and broad adoption of an open source in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) reference platform.

The new alliance will bring together automotive, consumer electronics, communications and application development companies investing in the IVI market and driving innovation to develop a solution that reduces time-to-market and total cost of ownership. It is hoped that the development will bring in-vehicle devices closer to the lifecycle of consumer devices, and will help to accelerate new business models, such as connected services.

GENIVI Alliance founding members BMW Group, Delphi, General Motors, Intel, Magneti Marelli, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Visteon, and Wind River, are collaborating to create a shared GENIVI platform – a common software architecture that is scalable across product lines and generations.

“GENIVI will challenge the traditional approach of proprietary solutions and spawn a level of creativity not yet seen in this segment,” says Graham Smethurst, GENIVI spokesperson and BMW group general manager, infotainment and communication systems.

“The automotive business needs to improve its efficiency continuously through open competition and the avoidance of unnecessary rework on mature technologies, which is especially true in this current economic environment,” adds Gerulf Kinkelin, PSA innovation area manager. “We firmly believe that GENIVI is the right forum to put in place as it will drive business efficiency through an open environment and foster a rich ecosystem that will likely go far beyond what we can imagine today.”

The first technical open source GENIVI platform is due to be unveiled in summer 2009, based on a tested and proven automotive prototype and running on the Intel Atom processor and Wind River Linux. It has been developed over the last 18 months by GENIVI members.

The reference implementation will be made available as open source code to stimulate innovation among developers.

3 March 2009