Toyota to begin featuring cloud computing in its models

Friday, April 08, 2011

Officials from Toyota recently announced the car manufacturer will soon feature cloud computing in many of its new vehicles.

Basing its network on Microsoft's Azure offering, Toyota will establish a cloud-based platform by 2015. With this network, vehicle owners will be able to access the company's digital services, such as monitoring of power usage, as well as combining telecommunications, GPS systems, multimedia and other features. Power usage will be especially useful in the company's electric and hybrid lines.

Having access to a cloud network will hopefully increase efficiency for Toyota in regards to customer support. According to an official, using cloud computing is a huge step forward for computer and vehicle relations. The official described it as "the fusing of telecommunications and information technologies in vehicles; it can encompass GPS systems, energy management and other multimedia technologies.”

As more companies witness the benefits of cloud computing, the market could expand even further. IDC recently forecast that worldwide spending on the technology will reach $44.2 billion by 2013.