The connected car market is poised for another growth spurt, judging from the flurry of recent partnerships and acquisitions between mobile operators or technology firms and automotive technology specialists. Most recently, Japan’s SoftBank paid €473 million ($510 million) for a majority 51% stake in Irish vehicular software specialist Cubic Telecom. That is a lot to spend on an Irish startup founded in 2007, with €110 million in funding and just over 180 staff. But it reflects Cubic’s success in assembling an ecosystem around its platform for enabling global connectivity, with regional variations that can be executed and updated from a central point. It allows the OEMs, in this case automotive makers (automakers), to monitor and manage a growing array of…