Quote:
Originally Posted by buze
I'm not terribly surprised of the slow pace of BMW software, their testing matrix must be HUGE really, given all the configuration, for *all the cars* with vastly different performance envelope and physical size.
I think they are not helped by having so many discrete components per car as well; they must have each their own 'team', require integration etc etc etc.
Basically it's nearly as bad as a real OS, and companies like Apple have software dept and QA dept that are massively larger.
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Yes, that is their challenge. Many established companies have failed the transformation from a hardware + embedded software company to a hardware + platform + software company, for example Nokia. BMW is trying but maybe they are moving too fast compared to their platform and software capabilities: there's no progress if each new feature or fix breaks two existing features.
However, all the hardware and software components they are working with are still their own design or picked by them (much like with Apple), so it is totally up to them to make it work. The testing matrix is large but really nothing compared to Windows PCs, each unique, where the task has still been solved to a decent degree (although I am sure there are other opinions about this
). BMW controllers and firmware are also highly reusable between product lines, iDrive looks largely identical on multiple vehicles, and all the use cases are the same.
BMW, just build a good software team, don't rush it and keep fixing until you reach stability.