Giant company Microsoft for years is attempting to invent an in-car computer, however the company is now ready for pole position with its latest effort to weave software into auto design.

It has now developed a system called Sync, which lets motorists control car stereos and mobile phones with voice commands. At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced about its features in a keynote speech and further declared that it's available exclusively from Ford Motor.

Until now Ford has sold over 100,000 vehicles with this system since it was introduced in November only and further company is expecting to sell a million Sync-enabled cars by early 2009. By that time Sync system will be available in 85% of its cars.

Cost- an attraction

This product has grasp attention mainly because of its cost. In order to add this system in Ford, Lincoln, or Mercury there will be an extra cost of mere $395 to the sticker price, whereas adding similar features for controlling music and cell phones to other cars can cost as much as $800.

It is still not known how the company is able to deliver it at such low price however researchers claim that in order to reduce its cost company is using inexpensive chips, for one thing. In a research it was found that the six major chips used in the system cost a grand total of $25 and out of these the most expensive component is an $8 applications chip from Freescale Semiconductor, the privately held former chip unit of Motorola. A second Freescale micro controller chip costs $5.

Along with this there is extra cost of $4.80 worth for memory chips from Micron Technology, a $3.80 flash memory chip from Samsung, a $1.75 Blue tooth chip from Cambridge Silicon Radio and a $1.65 audio chip from Cirrus Logic. Thus with approx this much cost it is ready.

However in addition to it there are licensing fees for Microsoft's software, and the voice-recognition technology from software maker Nuance Communications. Thus with all this it can cost between $100 and $150 to make. However yet company has not commented anything on the report.