ZF said it would work with Microsoft to bring its software engineering processes, methods and solutions to the speed and quality IT companies lead with.
"Transforming into a software-driven mobility services provider, ZF can scale its global resources more efficiently and better respond to the evolving customer needs," the supplier said.
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"Working with Microsoft, ZF is leveraging Azure cloud services and developer tools as well as Microsoft's experience in agile software development. Looking forward, ZF will provide the automotive industry with software solutions."
"In the future, software will have one of the largest impacts on automotive system development and will be one of the key differentiating factors when it comes to realising higher levels of automated driving functions," said ZF R&D chief Dirk Walliser.
"The collaboration with Microsoft will enable us to accelerate software integration and delivery significantly.
"Software will need to be developed when hardware is not yet available."
ZF would then combine its enormous know-how as a system developer for the automotive industry with the added advantage of significantly higher speeds for software development.
"DevOps empowers development and operations teams to optimize cross-team collaboration across automation, testing, monitoring and continuous delivery using agile methods. Microsoft is providing DevOps capabilities and sharing our experiences with ZF to help them become a software-driven mobility services provider," said Sanjay Ravi, general manager, automotive industry at Microsoft.
At CES 2020 in Las Vegas next month, ZF will showcase its vision of software development with cubiX: a software component that gathers sensor information from the entire vehicle and prepares it for an optimised control of active systems in the chassis, steering, brakes and propulsion.
Following a vendor-agnostic approach, cubiX will support components from ZF as well as third-party components.
It creates networked chassis functions thanks to software. By connecting multiple vehicle systems such as electric power steering, active rear axle steering, the sMOTION active damping system, driveline control and integrated brake control, cubiX can optimise the behaviour of the car from one central source.
ZF plans to start projects with first customers in 2020 and will offer cubiX from 2023 either as part of an overall system or as an individual software component.
