Setting Motor City rivalries aside, DaimlerChrysler AG, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. reached an agreement earlier this month to establish a common networking infrastructure for their dealer networks. The Big Three automakers anticipate that most of their applications, such as those used to manage services to customers and track vehicle inventories, will migrate to the Web within the next three years. Agreeing to a network infrastructure standard appeases multifranchise dealers that sell vehicles from several automakers, analysts noted.
Most dealers work with multiple manufacturers and nobody wanted to support more than one system.
The Big Three coming together will go a long way to developing an instrument for the dealers and manufacturers to communicate more efficiently. The network infrastructure guideline includes specifics, such as browser types, network equipment and connectivity requirements, that are up to dealers to implement, said officials from DaimlerChrysler in Stuttgart, Germany. The business is looking for every opportunity to improve performance and to be more responsive to customers. But thus far, experiments with Web-based ordering systems have had less than stellar results. Paul area configure and order Oldsmobile Aleros direct from the company.