Walter Sullivan: It was not only a challenge on fighting our own desires for specific enhancements that may or may not be good—but are interesting from a technology standpoint—but also Ford had its own interests once it learned what the capabilities of the device were, immediately expanding it into the different scenarios it could be used in. Especially among technology-minded people, it’s a natural temptation to start looking at new problems that you can solve with the technology. But, in order to deliver the product at a very high quality—which was obviously a very key aspect of it—and to deliver it on the schedule that we needed to in order to meet the production line, we had to exercise discipline. Realistically, the resource aspect is not too variable, because our product development teams are fairly well defined, and you don’t have the ability to bring on 25 guys for 3 months to get you through a crunch period. So, it was really an opportunity for us to focus on the content and the important scenarios and kind of keep everything grounded in the reality that we began the project on.
But I think that was the toughest thing for all of us, and this sometimes made Microsoft not the most fun partner to work with. However, it’s also the primary reason we delivered the project on time, on schedule, with the quality we expected to. We had both Ford and Fiat comment, at the end, that they appreciated that that was the role Microsoft played in the project, and gave us a lot of credit for the fact that that was what allowed us to deliver the product as successfully as we did.
Jeff James: What was the most surprising thing that you learned about Ford with the project? Was there anything unique that you found out about them?
Walter Sullivan: Until I had been through this process with them, probably like a lot of people, American cars were not high on my purchase list. Having gone through this process with them, and several other car makers, I can honestly say that the passion and the quality of the engineering put into these vehicles is on par with pretty much every other car maker I’ve worked with. Plus, Ford is innovating on the technology side. In fact , a colleague of mine and I were talking about today—if one of us were to purchase a car now, there are a number of Fords right now that we would consider purchasing, and 3-4 years ago I wouldn’t have said that.
Every time I work with a car maker, I do walk away with an appreciation for how complex an engineering task it is. Building one of these vehicles, getting all of the different parts designed and integrated and put together in a vehicle that delivers a good driving experience is quite a complex task. But with Ford in particular, I can tell you for certain that the practices, passion, and talent of the engineers at that company are on par with anyone else I’ve worked with. We’ve worked with high-end car makers and other foreign mass-production car makers with a reputation for very high quality, and what I see at Ford is easily on par with those guys. And I think their design is improving—the cars I see from Ford today are ones that I’d really consider buying.
Jeff James: So is anyone on your team currently driving a Ford vehicle with Sync equipped?
Walter Sullivan: We do have several Sync vehicles here that we test, and there is someone that has a Lincoln MKX that has Sync in it.
Jeff James: So the Ford Focus that Bill Gates was driving in his farewell video (shown below), was that his Focus or was that loaned to him for the occasion?
Walter Sullivan: That is one of the vehicles that our marketing team owns and uses for tradeshows and press demos, and things like that. That was a hilarious video. Actually, I had heard about the video, but hadn’t seen it before the CES launch, and I didn’t realize he was driving the Focus. That was pretty cool.
Jeff James: If there is one thing that you could point to that you were most proud of regarding the development, about either the process or the product, what would it be?
Walter Sullivan: As far as the process itself goes, in the software industry it is quite an accomplishment to pick a date 15 or 16 months ahead on the schedule, and deliver exactly what you said you would on that date, without having to adjust it. That is a pretty huge achievement in the software industry, especially because we didn’t cut features or compromise the quality to hit that date. It was because of the discipline that we’ve developed on our team for the planning, scheduling and executing that allowed us to do that. One of the things I’ll take away if I ever move from the automotive team to another team at Microsoft would be the insight that we’ve learned in how to execute so reliably on a significant scale software project. That’s something I’ll certainly take with me anywhere I go in my career.
Jeff James: This is probably an urban legend, but did any discussion emerge from the thing a couple years ago when Bill Gates reportedly said that if the auto industry developed as quickly as the software industry did, every car would be getting 1,000 miles to the gallon? Were there any jokes about that?
Walter Sullivan: There were plenty of jokes—you’ve probably seen the Internet jokes about “what would your car be if Microsoft sold cars?” There were lots of friendly jokes, even within the automotive team amongst ourselves, and with Ford we had a lot of fun playing on some of those Internet jokes that go around. There was nothing I recall about the pace of the automotive industry vs. the computer industry.
Jeff James: Any insider tips from Microsoft on the best way to use Sync or personal ways you’ve found to maximize the use of Sync?
Walter Sullivan: There’s two things I found when I took one of the cars home. We actually have about 6-8 test cars that we use for test purposes and to let people experience the product we’re building. I bring my 8GB Zune into the car, plug it in and just leave it there. It’s so cool to have whatever music I want available to me. I don’t have to remember to bring it to the car or bring a box of CDs. The other tip that I like is, once you become familiar with the system, and you know the voice command that you want to give, you can press the push to talk switch twice instead of just once and it goes straight to the listening mode. We call this the double pump. Once you press it twice, you can speak the command immediately instead of waiting for the prompt to finish. For someone that’s an expert user and knows the command they want to give, it’s a bit of a shortcut that gives them faster access to the voice command. I use that all the time when I’m in the car.
Jeff James: Thank you so much for your time.
Walter Sullivan: Have a good night.
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