Connected Cars Overtake Video Games at Electronics Show

Mark Fields remembers being treated like a Neanderthal when he joined Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates on stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to introduce the Sync in-car infotainment system.

The skeptical tech press in 2007 couldn’t seem to understand what Fields, who then ran Ford businesses throughout the Americas, was doing at a show known for cutting-edge phones and video games, he said. Coming from old industry, he jokes that they asked “why aren’t your knuckles dragging across the floor?”