General Motors Co. to Compete Ford (NYSE: F) Sync Technology

Posted by on Sep 8th, 2010

General Motors Co. plans on competing with Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) on its Sync in-car services system by offering free services via its OnStar in-car communications unit beginning next year, according to a report from Bloomberg.

OnStar, a service which provides accident alerts, navigation and vehicle diagnostics, is currently a paid subscription service for General Motors Co. vehicle owners, but an upgraded version of the system is expected to be released this month that will link vehicles to Facebook and translate voice messages to text, according to the report which cited anonymous sources.

The report also said that OnStar may begin offering entertainment and information services which link to a user’s smart-phone without a subscription or fee. Currently OnStar is currently offered free for the first year on many models, then consumers are charged between $199 and $299 per year depending on their feature set.

The new voice-to-text system is reportedly being studied with a test audience while the company decides whether or not to offer it to all consumers. The new version is also expected to have enhanced services for emergency response, which alerts an OnStar operator in the event of a vehicle crash. The company is also studying ways to use OnStar outside of the vehicle, where immediate contact with an operator to access other services might be useful, but specifics weren’t available.

Currently OnStar has about 5.7 million subscribers and is available on 40 vehicle models produced by General Motors. During the month of June, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and OnStar agreed to partner to offer turn by turn navigation services which would allow the company to send Google Maps destinations directly to their vehicle.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) has been selling its “Sync” technology, based on a technology from Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) since 2008. The company has since added touch command controls through its MyFordTouch system and voice activated climate control this year. The free service is currently available as a $395 option on some vehicles.

Shares of Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) traded up 0.76% on Tuesday, hitting $11.89 during mid-day trading on Tuesday.