Raj Manakkal is helping Honda move toward a future where software reigns supreme.
Like many of his contemporaries at other major automakers, Raj Manakkal is on the front lines of the transition away from a traditional, hardware-based business to one with software-defined vehicles at the forefront. Having worked at Honda for more than a quarter-century, he's seen the evolution from early navigation systems that used portable media for mapping to modern smartphone-based infotainment that relies on software to download directions from the cloud.
Powertrain software has resided in-house for a long time. Infotainment has gone that way now, and in the future driver assist will become more in-house. But even that includes support from third parties, and we still have to license third-party software. For example, in the Odyssey we introduced third-party navigation from Garmin. It's their software. We licensed it and integrated it into our software.
There are pluses and minuses. The plus in the Garmin case, for example, is we didn't have to develop a nav app. We buy Garmin's SDK and integrate it. Our work is mainly on the integration side, making sure GPS, the map, and audio work fine. It helps us reduce the development, and that's a huge plus. The minus is we are entering into new triaging and bug reduction whenever trouble happens and engineering work to fix it immediately. But that's not the real issue. There are others like who's responsible and the quality. And the software development cycles may be different from industry to industry. That probably is one of the most interesting learning factors.It is important, especially when it helps us quicken the development and innovation cycle.
Since then, Manakkal has worked on software for Honda and Acura infotainment systems, and that led to creating the first in-house software platform for the 2018 Odyssey minivan and the company's first over-the-air software updates. Manakkal said what he loves about his work is he feels he and his team are always "moving higher and higher," and adds that there's "always exciting new things to learn.
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