Microsoft has no plans to build a self-driving car

Microsoft won’t be building its own autonomous vehicle, but it will be present in the market, it was confirmed at a conference recently.

Speaking at the Converge Asia conference, Microsoft’s head of business development, Peggy Johnson, made these claims. Instead of building its own car, the company will team up with existing car makers and see to it that the devices get powered by Microsoft’s products.

According to media reports, Johnson answered questions about building an operating system for the cars of tomorrow, and when asked if Microsoft could build such an OS, Johnson responded with "certainly".

But it’s not just the operating system Microsoft will be looking to integrate into future vehicles. Azure, its cloud service, could also make it, as well as Cortana, the voice-based virtual assistant. There have also been mentions of the Office 365 productivity suite, to make the car "more productive".

A number of high-end car manufacturers have already joined in on the action, building their own autonomous vehicles, including Mercedes, Jaguar Land Rover, BMW, and others. On the tech side of the spectrum, both Google and Apple are making progress.

Google has already built its own vehicles, some of which have more than 1,000 miles of successful travel. Apple is still in the shadows, although there have been many talks about the American company also building its own car.

Autonomous vehicles are seen as the future of transportation, reducing the number of accidents, and giving humans time to do more productive things, instead to be stuck in traffic, shifting between gears.

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