I spotted an interesting story this week about collaboration and innovation: carmaker BMW is seeking collaborative support to create an open-source car computing platform.

BMW apparently wants to have an open source platform in one of its forthcoming vehicles and hopes it will be selling over 200,000 units over the next five to seven years.

Although at this stage the announcement is only about the planned collaborative creation of the open-source platform, the work will no doubt require the use of a string of collaborative technologies.

There's more detail on the story here

If this collaborative model can apply to a motor industry where previously fierce competition would have prevented any such collaboration, then it's reasonable to assume other industries may go the same way. In challenging economic times, with costs and efficiency at a premium, such collaboration may be a good idea. How many other organisations may be thinking the unthinkable?