Who's the big Swiss bunch that wants to take Sir Jony's lunch? It's... SWATCH! 1980s fashion icon Swatch has confirmed it is working on a smartwatch. The Swiss biz on Thursday said it will produce a wrist-puter that will include electronics for NFC payments. CEO Nick Hayek told shareholders the new model is set for an August launch in Switzerland and "one big country" that has yet to be named. Other …
Not only are they still in business they are the world's largest watchmaker and own the brands Breguet, Blancpain, Omega, Longines, Rado, Tissot and Certina amongst others, plus the ETA company who make movements used by many watch manufacturers, e.g. IWC, as well as being jointly responsible (with Mercedes-Benz) for the creation of the original Smart car.
The role of Swatch in the creation of the Smart car brand is worth bearing in mind when considering stories about established companies exampning into market sectors that are new to them.
Say you're a company who makes phones and you have a track record of successfully selling them at a high margin for nearly a decade. It stands to reason that you have data about your customers - gleaned from your existing marketing department and from the user's devices and buying habits - that you can bring to bear when you enter a new market sector. Like the Apple Car rumours.
Doesn't matter though. I still don't want to wear a watch when my phone provides all that and more.
My phone does that too.
But it's in my pocket.
A bit like those fob watches that people used to wear on a chain. Can't think why they ever went out of fashion, can you?
Plus one for the memory.
I remember too that Swatch made watches with numeric pagers back in the mid nineties, enjoying some success in some territories. Teenagers didn't often have mobile phon/ Nokias back then.
Instant messaging on your wrist 20 years ago? Whoda thought it!
"Either you have a quality product or a cheap product"
I strongly disagree. Products made in high volume can amortise the kind of automation that leads to extremely low defect levels. Your Lamborghini or Ferrari is more likely to have poor quality than a VW Golf, or even a Hyundai i10, because the manufacturing volume is so low that the man hours expended on quality by design will be far less than for the volume product.
>Either you have a quality product or a cheap product and I can't think of many things worse that cheap electronics....
And your point in regard to this article is what? £10 buys me an accurate, reliable and resilient Casio watch with a elegantly simple 'analogue' display.
I take your point that poorly designed electronic goods with horrendous user interfaces are horrible, but if sold in volume that design cost is shared amongst a large number of units; the cost of that thoughtful design becomes only a small percentage on top of the Bill of Materials.
" lead by consumer electronics giants... " - AAARRGGGHHHH - "lead" is a heavy element, "led" is past-tense of the verb "lead", as well as the first term in a long-defunct heavy metal band's name.
Even the NY Times can't keep this simple mistake off its pages - why oh why? Its [sic] a crying shame. Even now, someone's adding "your" as smartphone/blog-synonymous to "you are" in the Funk & Wagnalls' guide to speed butchering the language. Who'd of [sic] thunk it?
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