Generally Java

Java is becoming very widespread in the area of mundane products.

Just a few years ago, I saw TV news exposes and car owner websites revealing all the computerization problems BMW owners were having with their cars.

The problems revealed in the late model BMWs were pretty serious. It was almost like they were buying/driving some kind of prototypes - from the reject bin.

BMW obviously wanted to do something to make things right again. After all, when people hear German engineering, one of the things they think of is BMW cars. And they generally associate both BMW and German engineers with clever, usable, great technology.

So BMW grabbed ProSyst OSGi.

It lets them create bundles of Java, each of which is responsible for managing a particular device or providing a particular service. The different services and devices can interact in a well-managed way, thanks to OSGi.

Not only that, but the very serious problem of software versioning issues - something that makes real world software very brittle as it grows bigger and/or uses more and more 3rd party modules - is easily handled thanks to OSGi.

Know what other popular product uses OSGi?

Eclipse!!!

That is right, the popular, open source, Java IDE Eclipse started using OSGi quite heavily beginning with Eclipse version 3.

I have encountered serious, frustrating problems caused by software versioning issues many times.

The most serious, frequent ones involved the use of XML in the Java programming language. At least in this decade.

In the 1990s I saw it quite a bit with various versions of Windows and Microsoft Visual C++ MFC runtime libraries.

In 2000, I saw a tiny bit of it when I was using Linux quite a bit at home and at work. Not often but once for sure and perhaps another time or to in addition to that. No show stoppers though, fortunately.

It is great that Java has a decent way to handle this problem and it is very cool that a widely used tool like Eclipse has embraced it.

The fact BMW is doing the same thing now seems to validate the choice.
Telematics:

%u201CWe are already using OSGi for the Driver information system iDrive in our 5- and 6-Series cars,%u201D explained Michel, glossing neatly over the way that BMW have realised that the original iDrive system from the 7-Series was unnecessarily complicated to use, and has been much simplified for later applications. He went on to explain that the idea remains to centralise functionality in the car, and that %u201Cthere are lots of components, the phone, navigation system, some car controls, all based inside the iDrive package. The OSGi platform allows everything to be integrated, but to be easily upgraded. We are, for instance, very aware of driver distraction issues and are able to work around those problems. The ability to flash software onto the control unit provided by OSGi helps considerably.%u201D

Back in 2002-2003, BMW dallied with Microsoft Auto. I do not hear much about that relationship anymore.