GenIVI – “Generally Expected Not for In Vehicle Infotainment”

Last week at the Intel Developer’s Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, Intel CEO, Paul Otellini announced in his keynote that Intel’s Atom processor would be used in upcoming 2012 Model Year BMW and Daimler vehicles. The OS to be used? QNX Neutrino RTOS. What I find interesting is:


  • BMW is THE leading advocate for Linux in automotive and founding board member of GenIVI
  • Intel created GenIVI and is a founding board member that pushed Linux as the only OS for GenIVI (see my comments on that approach here: http://anarchistgrafiti.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-license-is-single-point-of-failure.html) and primarily focused on the Atom Architecture
  • WindRiver was recently acquired by Intel (see my blog comment on this: http://anarchistgrafiti.blogspot.com/2009/06/wintel-becomes-windtel.html) for it’s Linux competence and is also a founding member of GenIVI
So at the end of the day team GenIVI didn’t give itself the win in stacked competition? You have to wonder why that might have been? Perhaps we should look to Linus Torvalds’ recent commentary at LinuxCon where he stated that the Linux kernel has become "huge and scary" and that it isn't "the streamlined, hyper-efficient kernel I envisioned when I started writing Linux."
Perhaps GenIVI should consider its OS strategy. . . QNX might be a good choice