Ford ships its 1,000,000th Sync-powered vehicle, Ballmer gets it

Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid
Now, I can’t say I feel one way or the other about Ford and Sync in particular, but this is a worthwhile milestone. Cars are changing fast, and although I doubt they’ll look like these F-Zero-wannabes any time soon, the coalescing of all those dash controls into a single unit is a serious advance. Ford’s Sync is the poster child for these systems, what with Microsoft’s backing and all that. Now, it may not come standard yet (in fact, it costs a mint to get the whole setup) but getting it into a million vehicles means that it’s no longer a niche add-on but a legit option.

We liked it in the Ford Flex and in the Lincoln MKS, and its capabilities are constantly expanding. I have a feeling that even if Ford were to collapse and disappear, we’d still see a lot of Sync going around.

So who got the magic millionth vehicle? Steve Ballmer. Give me a break, doesn’t that guy have enough cars already? Well, hopefully if he’ll drive his new car to work instead of taking that private jet and save some gas. The Microsoft commute is murder. They should move the whole company over to Second Life — now that would save some gas.

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