IBM Joins AUTOSAR

IBM (www.ibm.com) announced today that it has become the newest member of the Automotive Open Systems Architecture (AUTOSAR) consortium.

AUTOSAR is a partnership of key players in the automotive, electronics and software industries dedicated to managing the complexities of rapidly increasing electronics and software technology in vehicles through the creation and adoption of globally recognized, open-standards-based platforms.

Key members of AUTOSAR besides IBM include BMW, Volkswagen, DaimlerChrysler, Bosch, Siemens and Continental Tevis among dozens of other international firms. Founded in 2002, AUTOSAR was formally launched in July 2003.

In this new environment, the digital and electronics world also brings with it new options for behavioral modeling, auto-code generation, simulation and testing as well as software asset reuse; it presents enormous opportunities to the automotive engineering community in terms of facilitating innovation and speeding embedded systems development.

To address both challenges and the opportunities, automotive suppliers today invest in research and development (R&D) at double-digit percentage levels.

"With a world that grows increasingly dependent on the functions supplied by embedded software, it's a fact that embedded software development and management is immature as compared to other engineering disciplines," said Janette Beauchamp, General Manager, IBM Global Automotive Industry.

IBM will join AUTOSAR as a Premium Member. In that capacity, IBM will both participate in and act as a leader for select working groups, such as those focusing on process, methods, architectures, standards, configuration management and transformation.

IBM is the world's largest information-technology company and a leader in helping businesses and organizations innovate. IBM and IBM Business Partners offer a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of on demand business.