Ford ventures into cloud sector with $182.2 million investment

Ford Motor Company takes a peek in the cloud venture investing $182.2 million in a cloud-based software company called Pivotal headquartered in San Francisco. With this move, the automobile stalwart plans to enhance its software development capabilities and deliver innovations to customers more quickly.

“Expanding our business to be both an auto and mobility company requires leading-edge software expertise to deliver outstanding customer experiences,” said Mark Fields, Ford president and CEO. “Our investment in Pivotal will help strengthen our ability to deliver these customer experiences at the speed of Silicon Valley, including continually expanding FordPass – our digital, physical and personal mobility experience platform.”

This investment aims to help Ford’s transition to an auto and a mobility company expanding its product’s connectivity and remote access. The company wants to help owners with things like locating parking spots and car sharing opportunities.

“Investing in Pivotal builds on our current strengths in software development,” said Marcy Klevorn, Ford vice president and CIO, who will join the board of directors at Pivotal. “We plan to quickly add new state-of-the-art software engineering capabilities across the Ford enterprise.”

This is not the first time Ford and Pivotel are crossing paths with each other. Ford teamed up with Pivotal last month to deliver FordPass, an innovative consumer experience platform. FordPass will offer new customer services, like remote access to vehicles through a smartphone app, and mobility solutions, such as parking and car sharing. Innovating and iterating quickly, Pivotal and Ford IT engineers are working side-by-side to create new consumer experiences for FordPass members.

“Today we are at a major inflection point in global business, and Pivotal is at the fulcrum of that change,” said Rob Mee, Pivotal CEO. “We are collaborating with iconic companies like Ford to help transform their businesses with our unique software development methodology and modern cloud platform and analytics tools. We are thrilled to create a deeper partnership with Ford through this investment as we drive its evolution to becoming both an auto and mobility company – reinventing yet again how the world moves.”

Ford is continuing to focus on and invest in its core business – designing, manufacturing, marketing, financing and servicing cars, SUVs, trucks and electrified vehicles. At the same time, the company is aggressively pursuing emerging opportunities through Ford Smart Mobility – its plan to be a leader in connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, the customer experience, and data and analytics. Building on this existing relationship, Ford is determined to incorporate Pivotal’s advanced software development methodologies and technology across the IT, product development, and research and advanced engineering teams. And with Pivotal even more closely connected with Ford, the companies’ engineers get a good kick-start to accelerate the development without much ado.