Ford may soon lead the way in the U.S. with low-cost Bluetooth-based access to cell phones, music players, and possibly navigation systems in cars. Both Ford and Microsoft have scheduled press conferences next week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit and also at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, reportedly to unveil a technology, tentatively called Sync, that sounds a lot like a 2006 Microsoft-Fiat offering.

Nearly a year ago, Microsoft said it intended to announce, within a year, a U.S. automaker partner for a technology it pioneered in Europe with Fiat, called Blue & Me and announced at the February 2006 Geneva Auto Show. At the time, TechnoRide said that among American companies, Ford would be the most likely candidate, because it's "the American automaker most in need of tech-savvy entertainment/communications alliances."

The Wall Street Journal (Friday, December 29, 2006) quoted Ford sources as saying a technology called Sync would be announced the week of January 10. The Journal's sources said Sync would initially come in the two cars Ford is refreshing in 2007, the small Focus and the full-size Five Hundred, and will provide "hands-free cell phone communication and other wireless information transfers inside the car, including the ability to receive e-mail and download music."

In Europe, Fiat Blue & Me provides (for about $275) an in-dash system that integrates a USB jack, Bluetooth, a small dashboard (or radio faceplate) display, voice recognition, and the Windows Automotive operating system that is an offshoot of Windows CE. The USB jack lets you connect the iPod or just about any other music player and control it from your in-dash radio. Bluetooth allows for hands-free cellular calling and, in the case of Blue & Me, a cheap way to get a rudimentary navigation system: Over a cellular data link, the user requests directions via voice input to a destination; turn-by-turn information and an iconic map are downloaded moments later to the car. Rather than pay $1,500-plus for a navigation system, the user pays $10 a month.

The first description of the Microsoft-Ford system doesn't mention navigation, but navigation wasn't initially implemented on Blue & Me Fiats and Alfa Romeos either. We'll have to see what the "downloads e-mail" technology means, but in the past such a description has often meant that a Bluetooth-connected telephone/PDA such as a Blackberry or Pocket PC phone, using text to speech, could get the messages read through the car speakers. It hasn't yet meant a self-contained, e-mail-fetching in-dash device.

Ford may use Bluetooth as a transfer medium for digital music, in addition to or instead of USB. More than a year ago, when we asked about its then-woeful connection schemes for digital music players at the rollout of the Lincoln Zephyr, now called the Lincoln MKZ ("Lincoln's 3,400-Pound Technology I.O.U."), a Lincoln-Mercury executive said Ford believed Bluetooth might offer a workable solution.

Having a hard drive in the dash would allow you to store your music in the car, so you wouldn't need to bring your iPod or music player on every trip. Several cars now have in-dash hard drives, including the Infiniti on the G35 and Mercedes-Benz on the S-Class; they can be used to store music ripped from CDs and to store the contents of a navigation system disc.

For would-be car buyers, the advantage of a Ford or Fiat solution is low cost. Bluetooth and iPod-only adapters run $100 to $500 each if the automaker offers them, and $200 each is not atypical. That forces Bluetooth technology into costlier cars, even though the younger drivers who buy entry-level cars (such as the Focus) are more comfortable with technology such as Bluetooth and more likely to own music players. For Microsoft, there's the advantage of having more of a foothold in the automotive marketplace. Already its operating systems are in the dashboards of more than 50 car models—although only on the Fiat is it visible, even to the point of having a Windows logo on a steering wheel button.