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Swatch CEO Says iWatch Isn't the Next Revolution
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The Swatch Paparazzi was the ugliest most ineffective inefficient piece of crap I have ever seen. You REALLY think Apple would release such a pathetic device. How can u even begin to compare.
Well Nick Hayek, the guy quoted in the article, is the CEO of Swatch Group so that's a given
The ipod was a shipping or at least announced (and about to ship) product. You can't compare that to a rumor, especially when mp3 players were still gaining popularity at that time. Watches are really something that is in decline. What improvement would you derive by making something as a watch? The only people who still buy watches merely wear them as jewelry or use them for specialized purposes. If you needed something waterproof, you wouldn't bring your phone.
It is probably worth noting that in 2012 the 'Luxury' watch sector recorded its best year since the late 70's and early 80's with over £13.6Billion revenue
Would anyone who has spend more than £300 or $500 on a watch, swap this for an 'iWatch' regardless of the features?
I think the question is where do Apple want to position this item in the marketplace, because for me it just doesnt fit unless they want the lower end of the market, 'G-Shock' etc and then we get into a situation of manufacturing and costings and ultimately revenue for Apple? Will this watch be £200/$350?
Anything more and I would question just who would want it and anything less then it gets into the realms of low profitability v outlay (manufacturing etc)
Would anyone who has spend more than £300 or $500 on a watch, swap this for an 'iWatch' regardless of the features?
I think the question is where do Apple want to position this item in the marketplace, because for me it just doesnt fit unless they want the lower end of the market, 'G-Shock' etc and then we get into a situation of manufacturing and costings and ultimately revenue for Apple? Will this watch be £200/$350?
Anything more and I would question just who would want it and anything less then it gets into the realms of low profitability v outlay (manufacturing etc)
Yes...I'm sure Apple will kill off the worlds largest watch company that makes some of the best watches in the world...I'm sure people will trade in a swatch for an iWatch
There are people who only want their watches to tell them what time it is.
There were and are people who only want to use their phone to make voice calls.
There are people who consider watches to be simply a fashion statement. There are people who will buy an Apple watch simply as a fashion statement.
There are people who will ridicule people who would buy an Apple watch saying that they are only doing it as a fashion statement, which also ridicules those fashion-conscious people who don't think Apple is as fashionable as Rolex or Movado or Swatch.
There are people like me who like technology, but don't wear watches or eyeglasses. It remains to be seen whether Apple or Google can convince us to wear computers on our wrists or faces when we've already jettisoned the devices we used to wear there.
He probably has, but dismissed it because it's a piece of junk fashion watch. That's not what Swatch make money with. They make money with luxury mechanical watches that cost thousands of dollars. Their competitors aren't Diesel or Fossil or, well, Apple. Their competitors are Richemont, LVMH, Rolex...
A smartphone or a tablet can never replace a real computer. Eventually, people will realize this and the smartphone and tablet markets will collapse.
Real computers are the future...
...real computers that you wear on your wrist, maybe, but real computers nonetheless.
The Swatch Group owns the following brands: Breguet, Blancpain, Jaquet Droz, Glashütte Original, Léon Hatot, Omega, Tiffany Watch Co., Rado, Longines, Union Glashütte, Tissot, ck watch & jewelry, Certina, Mido, Pierre Balmain, Hamilton, Flik Flak and Endura.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch
I don't need nor desire tech in watches, I want beautiful mechanical things.
Let me tell you a story.
Commodore was working on a laptop computer prototype that was similar to the Tandy 100 portable. The Commodore LCD -- whose marvelous hardware and software you can read about -- was going to blow the Tandy 100 away.
All was going well until Commodore's CEO at the time, Marshall Smith, was convinced by Tandy management that were was no future in these small machines. Unbeknownst to Smith, RadioShack was about to unleash the 100.
And we all remember this gem from Palm's Ed Colligan speaking about the iPhone:
"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."
iWatch replace the iPhone? No one, with any amount of credibility, is saying that it will. Cause a revolution? I think Hayek knows just how incredible an iWatch would be, and his agenda with that quote betrays his dismissal.
Commodore was working on a laptop computer prototype that was similar to the Tandy 100 portable. The Commodore LCD -- whose marvelous hardware and software you can read about -- was going to blow the Tandy 100 away.
All was going well until Commodore's CEO at the time, Marshall Smith, was convinced by Tandy management that were was no future in these small machines. Unbeknownst to Smith, RadioShack was about to unleash the 100.
And we all remember this gem from Palm's Ed Colligan speaking about the iPhone:
"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."
iWatch replace the iPhone? No one, with any amount of credibility, is saying that it will. Cause a revolution? I think Hayek knows just how incredible an iWatch would be, and his agenda with that quote betrays his dismissal.
Regarding the "Largest watch company in the world" that some people here are too keen to point out:
just one example (of many): Remember the CEO of the worlds largest software company, laughing, kicking and screaming "500 dollar for an iphone? fully subsidized?"
Kinda puts the whole "largest company"-blabla in an other perspective doesn't it?
I'm not saying this one is wrong, but bluntly stating that he must be right and he knows what he's talking about just because he's the CEO of the largest whatever... well... you get the point i'm trying to make
just my 2 cents. no offense intended
just one example (of many): Remember the CEO of the worlds largest software company, laughing, kicking and screaming "500 dollar for an iphone? fully subsidized?"
Kinda puts the whole "largest company"-blabla in an other perspective doesn't it?
I'm not saying this one is wrong, but bluntly stating that he must be right and he knows what he's talking about just because he's the CEO of the largest whatever... well... you get the point i'm trying to make
just my 2 cents. no offense intended
It no longer starts in the $500 realm fully subsidized. Apple adjusted their business model on that one, although I don't recall ever reading that statement.
Nick is worried because he knows the demographic trends are against him.
He sells exclusivity, but sees that the democratizing power of the iPhone crosses socioeconomic and national boundaries as easily as clouds in the blue sky overhead. No high net-worth individual is embarrassed to be seen using the same iPhone as a high-schooler with braces, or Chinese middle class worker (in fact, quite the opposite.). Such behavior flies in the face of the exclusivity that Swatch Group sells and this combined with the fact that, generally, there is only one wrist available, per human, for his products to use (and if that is already populated by a beloved Wrist Pod-like device, has to be troubling...)
His super premium brands need not worry, unless there is a wholesale move by premium users to trade the exclusivity of jewelry-level chic for the novelty of iPhone-chic exclusivity, and then staying there because of the utility (as with an iPhone UI, or for exercise or Apple TV or gaming control, etc.). It's his upper-market brands, and the value brand (swatch), all serving as aspirational brands that feed the hoped-for conveyor to his upper level brands that are equally at risk here.
Regardless of brand, or price point, for the most part, the Swatch Group product portfolio, only covers the "purse" portion of Alfred Sloan's* famous "For every purse and purpose" dictum, as, be it a Swatch or Breguet, the "purpose" part of Swatch's portfolio is tied to fashionable time telling devices that do not much more than that.
So his key worry (now that his father and Schwartzkopf are dead, truly the only guys I ever saw wearing a watch on both wrists) is that for the vast majority of customers, like the proverbial 99 and 44/100 %, there is only one wrist per human being, which can be seen as the nominal useful location for a watch, and now he has to battle for this real-estate against wrist-pod-like devices.
Given that a large number of his customers have the disposable income to be early adopters, and that if the Wrist Pod is truly cool and useful, like apple products are wont to be, SMH-Swatch Group's business model will take a hit across segments. (I think most dads and moms would rather see their kids faces on their wrist than some elegant Zifferblatt.)
As a long-time purchaser of his father's, and now Nick's, products, I think I am a reasonable proxy for the kind of customer he seeks (in the not ultra-affluent segments), and as such, he has to worry not only about losing me, but attracting the future new mes that might buy the upper-mid market models after having also purchased from the lower volume brands in his stable.
I see his recent purchase of Harry Winston as a move with two objectives, to try and bring some of the glamor associated with this brand to the Swatch Group, in order to move its horological portfolio further upscale - as a hedge against the encroachment of Wrist Pod like devices on his portfolio's volume segments, and possibly to build-up that business as a competitor to Swarovski and to shore-up turnover and profit lost to the coming tidal wave of Wrist Pods...
* Longtime Chairman of GM, then the undisputed largest automotive and industrial enterprise in the world, which after not recognizing the threat, or effectively responding to the challenge, of being "disrupted" by import brands faded from a position of profit and power (or aspirational desire.). As with size comes the benefit of confidence, yet the risk of isolation, group-think and Hubris...
He sells exclusivity, but sees that the democratizing power of the iPhone crosses socioeconomic and national boundaries as easily as clouds in the blue sky overhead. No high net-worth individual is embarrassed to be seen using the same iPhone as a high-schooler with braces, or Chinese middle class worker (in fact, quite the opposite.). Such behavior flies in the face of the exclusivity that Swatch Group sells and this combined with the fact that, generally, there is only one wrist available, per human, for his products to use (and if that is already populated by a beloved Wrist Pod-like device, has to be troubling...)
His super premium brands need not worry, unless there is a wholesale move by premium users to trade the exclusivity of jewelry-level chic for the novelty of iPhone-chic exclusivity, and then staying there because of the utility (as with an iPhone UI, or for exercise or Apple TV or gaming control, etc.). It's his upper-market brands, and the value brand (swatch), all serving as aspirational brands that feed the hoped-for conveyor to his upper level brands that are equally at risk here.
Regardless of brand, or price point, for the most part, the Swatch Group product portfolio, only covers the "purse" portion of Alfred Sloan's* famous "For every purse and purpose" dictum, as, be it a Swatch or Breguet, the "purpose" part of Swatch's portfolio is tied to fashionable time telling devices that do not much more than that.
So his key worry (now that his father and Schwartzkopf are dead, truly the only guys I ever saw wearing a watch on both wrists) is that for the vast majority of customers, like the proverbial 99 and 44/100 %, there is only one wrist per human being, which can be seen as the nominal useful location for a watch, and now he has to battle for this real-estate against wrist-pod-like devices.
Given that a large number of his customers have the disposable income to be early adopters, and that if the Wrist Pod is truly cool and useful, like apple products are wont to be, SMH-Swatch Group's business model will take a hit across segments. (I think most dads and moms would rather see their kids faces on their wrist than some elegant Zifferblatt.)
As a long-time purchaser of his father's, and now Nick's, products, I think I am a reasonable proxy for the kind of customer he seeks (in the not ultra-affluent segments), and as such, he has to worry not only about losing me, but attracting the future new mes that might buy the upper-mid market models after having also purchased from the lower volume brands in his stable.
I see his recent purchase of Harry Winston as a move with two objectives, to try and bring some of the glamor associated with this brand to the Swatch Group, in order to move its horological portfolio further upscale - as a hedge against the encroachment of Wrist Pod like devices on his portfolio's volume segments, and possibly to build-up that business as a competitor to Swarovski and to shore-up turnover and profit lost to the coming tidal wave of Wrist Pods...
* Longtime Chairman of GM, then the undisputed largest automotive and industrial enterprise in the world, which after not recognizing the threat, or effectively responding to the challenge, of being "disrupted" by import brands faded from a position of profit and power (or aspirational desire.). As with size comes the benefit of confidence, yet the risk of isolation, group-think and Hubris...
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As released recently Jony got watches some samples from Nike.
I think an iwatch would have some kind of sports flavour to it. Or at least the ability to track steps etc, and if it could monitor your heart rate, then it could be used as a medical device of some kind. (with the input of clever App developers out there)
What I see being a real cool thing would be if it had a NFC chip in it so you could use your watch to pay for things all linked to your phone.
So in the supermarket, just swipe your arm like you are using the force over the eftpos machine and you are on your way.
Also, Swatch Group is huge. When Swatch became massive in the 80s and early 90s with all their plastic watches, they went and bought up an impressive array of companies that includes some with a very prestigious background.
eg Longines, Omega, Rado etc.
Still this CEOs comments remind me of Steve Ballmer straight after the iphone launch.
I think if the watch can be highly customised, and allow for lots of 3rd party bands just like the old ipod Nano watches, it will be massively popular.
I think an iwatch would have some kind of sports flavour to it. Or at least the ability to track steps etc, and if it could monitor your heart rate, then it could be used as a medical device of some kind. (with the input of clever App developers out there)
What I see being a real cool thing would be if it had a NFC chip in it so you could use your watch to pay for things all linked to your phone.
So in the supermarket, just swipe your arm like you are using the force over the eftpos machine and you are on your way.
Also, Swatch Group is huge. When Swatch became massive in the 80s and early 90s with all their plastic watches, they went and bought up an impressive array of companies that includes some with a very prestigious background.
eg Longines, Omega, Rado etc.
Still this CEOs comments remind me of Steve Ballmer straight after the iphone launch.
I think if the watch can be highly customised, and allow for lots of 3rd party bands just like the old ipod Nano watches, it will be massively popular.
it's not about the $500...
It's about the biggest CEO/company making critical business mistakes. Happens all the time, examples plenty. Many "largest companies" have ended up being a shadow of themselves (or went bankrupt) because of arrogance or shortsighted CEO's. Microsoft with it's phone-history and idiot-CEO is just an example. (sorry, i truly dislike the man)
Might happen to Swatch in the next few years, might happen to Apple, or whoever. Look at RIM (Blackberry), Kodak, Motorola (who??), Enron, Kmart... list is endless. Let your guard down, fall asleep, be arrogant, take the wrong turn, etc, and you're history, big or not. Great things are celebrated but mistakes are never forgotten.
Even though making wrist watches is a healthy multi-billion dollar business, most young people do not wear watches (or ones that are highly profitable to make).
As the people who do buy and wear these ticking status symbols get older and die, the product that does end on the wrists of a younger demographic, and provides some perhaps addictive features, will be hard to displace with an old-school luxury item as these customers become older and more affluent.
It's not the first time a company slowly faded because its customers got old and eventually died.
As the people who do buy and wear these ticking status symbols get older and die, the product that does end on the wrists of a younger demographic, and provides some perhaps addictive features, will be hard to displace with an old-school luxury item as these customers become older and more affluent.
It's not the first time a company slowly faded because its customers got old and eventually died.
Swatch CEO Nick Hayek is right. Even when the iClock or Watch or whatever would become a success it doesn't mean it's revolutionary. The iWatch can already be labeled as the swiss army knife within the tech gadgets category that includes the GoogleGlass, iPod, iPad, iPhone, Smartphones in general. And only when the device would actually work in a proper way.
As far I can tell the purpose of the iWatch will be:
- able to show you the current time (no brainer)
- able to warn you when you're being called by iPhone
- able to accept a phone call and/or ri-direct it (maybe)
- able to quickly reply a voice-message (maybe)
- able to show you your last e-mails (maybe, and when screen res. allows it)
- able to do several thing, hack, maybe even to send trough your content to your apple tv devise and I'm sure lot's of other features...
IF all of that would work nicely then you might speak of the equivalent of the swiss army knife....
BUT
is this all revolutionary as Apple would probably bring it?
Answer: No.
Is that bad?
Answer: No.
Personally I'm just going to see what will happen. In my point of view no new revolutions are being made by Apple, not in a long run even by the looks of it. Is that bad? Not necessarily, but even the Apple fanboys should see that everything that Apple came up with after Steve Jobs isn't revolutionary at all. So far it's just making products better and no, that's not bad either...
The google glass isn't revolutionary either unless the world population will work with this product (I doubt that...)
The term 'revolutionary' should be used in a wider perspective. For example, the thing I consider revolutionary as for today?
- the ongoing video revolution where people that doesn't have the sources big shot producers in Hollywood do have (money) are able to buy professional equipment for almost nothing compared to a decade or two ago and use those products to make professional looking movies
- the fact that worldwide people are able to get access to the internet which I find a revolutionary on itself. Just think of the possibility for someone in the middle of no-where 'with' mobile connection is able to get his or her hands on world finished authors, movies, education etc, with a click on a button...
- the fact that massive amount of music, lyrics, songs, and whole albums are in reach for millions at cost that will become less and less when the years passing by....
- the fact that a teacher is now technical able to teach kids and/or student abroad using good quality video connection
And the list goes on and on...
Apple, Google, IBM... that might have started several revolutions and/or at least have contribute in any way. But are they still revolutionary, coming up with revolutionary devises?
Hardly.
As far I can tell the purpose of the iWatch will be:
- able to show you the current time (no brainer)
- able to warn you when you're being called by iPhone
- able to accept a phone call and/or ri-direct it (maybe)
- able to quickly reply a voice-message (maybe)
- able to show you your last e-mails (maybe, and when screen res. allows it)
- able to do several thing, hack, maybe even to send trough your content to your apple tv devise and I'm sure lot's of other features...
IF all of that would work nicely then you might speak of the equivalent of the swiss army knife....
BUT
is this all revolutionary as Apple would probably bring it?
Answer: No.
Is that bad?
Answer: No.
Personally I'm just going to see what will happen. In my point of view no new revolutions are being made by Apple, not in a long run even by the looks of it. Is that bad? Not necessarily, but even the Apple fanboys should see that everything that Apple came up with after Steve Jobs isn't revolutionary at all. So far it's just making products better and no, that's not bad either...
The google glass isn't revolutionary either unless the world population will work with this product (I doubt that...)
The term 'revolutionary' should be used in a wider perspective. For example, the thing I consider revolutionary as for today?
- the ongoing video revolution where people that doesn't have the sources big shot producers in Hollywood do have (money) are able to buy professional equipment for almost nothing compared to a decade or two ago and use those products to make professional looking movies
- the fact that worldwide people are able to get access to the internet which I find a revolutionary on itself. Just think of the possibility for someone in the middle of no-where 'with' mobile connection is able to get his or her hands on world finished authors, movies, education etc, with a click on a button...
- the fact that massive amount of music, lyrics, songs, and whole albums are in reach for millions at cost that will become less and less when the years passing by....
- the fact that a teacher is now technical able to teach kids and/or student abroad using good quality video connection
And the list goes on and on...
Apple, Google, IBM... that might have started several revolutions and/or at least have contribute in any way. But are they still revolutionary, coming up with revolutionary devises?
Hardly.
What's with all the (parentheses) in that (quote) of yours? I'm (a little) confused...
There are apps that use the compass, but the turn-by-turn doesn't need it.
GPS with turn-by-turn has operated on devices without a compass for a decade and a half. I was using it in the late 1990s on a laptop.
It figures out which direction you are going by taking two or more measurements of your position, and then drawing a vector between them. If you're close enough to a road, it snaps you onto the road. Navigation systems built into cars may have compasses or be tied to steering and speed so that they can still follow your position inside tunnels.
If the maps app used the compass for turn-by-turn, it would get confused if you turned the phone sideways while it was giving you direction. It would also complain about too much interference, and instruct you to move the phone in a figure 8.
When you put Maps in orientate mode, it does use the compass (and will complain if there is interference). This is handy when you are walking and your destination is out of sight. It can tell you if you are walking in the right direction.