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Vuzix says it has sold “thousands” of M100 glasses.
A Google Glass fit for the factory floor
A small U.S. company called Vuzix hopes a partnership with Lenovo will help it make a big splash in China’s wearable technology market.
It wasn’t long after Google first revealed its Glass project in 2012 that technology companies reconsidered eyewear as a platform for wearable computing.
Lenovo, the Chinese computing giant, was one of them. The world’s largest PC vendor, known for an experimental hardware streak that brought the world numerous convertible laptops and a concentric mobile keyboard, knew it had the software and applications that could power such a device. So it set upon making one for its home market in China, where Glass failed to tread.
As the company marched toward a summer rollout, it realized it had a problem. Weeks away from presenting to investors and consumers that were hungry for a Glass alternative, the prototype was still not ready. It needed a Plan B, and quickly.
Enter Vuzix.
The Rochester, N.Y. company, best known for its line of head-mounted video eyewear favored by soldiers and gamers (as well as a 2009 cameo on The Oprah Winfrey Show), launched its own smart glasses at the end of 2013. The company had sold off its defense business the year before and was in search of new markets.
How about China?
“I met with them back in May and they said, ‘Look, we haven’t done so well and we have this major announcement we are planning for the summer. Is there any way we can strike a deal?’” said Dan Cui, Vuzix’s vice president of business development. “I said absolutely.”
In late July, the two companies announced a year-long partnership that allows a co-branded version of Vuzix’s M100 to be sold and marketed in China. Lenovo has already started taking orders for the headset, which with a touch of irony runs on Google’s Android operating system, and expects to start selling it for 8,000 Yuan (approx. $1,302) beginning this month. Prices are similar in the United States.
“We are very happy to partner with Vuzix. It’s a great start,” said Yuli Bai, Lenovo’s general manager of new business development. “Vuzix has a long history and the most advanced technology in smart glasses globally. Along with the M100, we are also considering other partnerships with Vuzix on future products. And we’re only not looking to market in China with Vuzix but also globally.”
The partnership allows Lenovo to move quickly to corner its lucrative home market, which this year supplanted North America as the world’s largest for consumer electronics, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. It also gives Vuzix entrance into what can often be a tricky place for foreign companies to operate and the support of a tech company that is many times larger than it. (Lenovo, a Fortune Global 500 company, counts more than 33,000 employees in 60 countries. Vuzix has just 35.)
Both companies seek to make a splash in the nascent wearable technology market, which IMS, the market research arm of IHS, predicts will be worth at least $6 billion by 2016. Taiwan-based Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center predicts the global wearables market will reach $20.6 billion by 2018. IDC, another market research firm, predicts China’s wearables market to grow from just 30,000 units this year to 1.38 million by 2018.
There are challenges: existing wearables, from watches to glasses, have been criticized as clunky, unattractive, and expensive. While Samsung, Google, and Apple battle it out for the hearts of consumers, Lenovo believes its chances are better in the enterprise market. Think BlackBerry, but for glasses.
“We’ve been at this for along time. We know the average guy walking down the street is not going to wear something that will make him look like he has a problem or came off the Starship enterprise,” said Paul Travers, the company’s energetic and fast-talking chief executive, in a recent visit to Fortune‘s New York offices. “It doesn’t fit in that marketplace. The number one question we get from customers is, ‘Can’t you hire a decent industrial design firm and make these things look sexy?’ I’m telling you, man—when you have 10 pounds of shit, it don’t fit in a sexy bag. It is what it is. As a tool, it works.”
Fortune 500 companies across industries can save millions by using the devices, Travers says. The savings, he claims, are found in the efficiencies that wearable computers bring to industries such as airline, field services, manufacturing, and health care. With the glasses, workers can read a bar code to fill orders in a warehouse, bring up a three-dimensional visual showing them how to repair a machine on a factory floor, or communicate by video link with other employees wherever they are—all with hands free.
Both companies are gambling that businesses’ focus on function and not fashion will be conducive to gaining traction in that market. The M100 can take photos, record and play video, connect to the Internet, and link to a phone. Its display, positioned in the wearer’s peripheral vision, is equivalent to a four-inch screen on a smartphone that is held about a foot away.
“Every company out there has people in the field. Imagine now if they are enabled with wearable technology and are immediately able to solve problems,” Cui said. “So, gee, I don’t understand how that works. Let me call the guy in the office and the technician sees what I am looking at and, in addition, when I’m wearing the glasses, they recognize that part and the relevant information comes up. Now you have provided peer-to-peer communication, machine-to-machine interfacing, and additional oversight in the field, all in one small, wearable device.”
Outside of China, the company has collaborated with several large tech companies including SAP, Nokia, and NTT Docomo to develop applications for the device.
“When you send a technician out to do anything, they walk into an environment and the only have certain tools available to them,” said Paul Boris, a global vice president for SAP, whose warehouse picking software will be on the device later this year. “What we are doing is we’re giving them a set of digital tools that overlay very nicely with the all the physical tools they have. So we don’t require them to do more. We require them to do less.”
Boris added that SAP chose Vuzix because its device was “a little better suited for industrial use” and was the only one that was “available in quantity.” Since its official launch eight months ago, Vuzix says it has sold “thousands” of M100 glasses. The co-branded version for the Chinese market began shipping this month. It expects the device to eventually account for 50% of its sales by the end of the year.
Analysts are bullish on the companies’ prospects. “They are in one of those precious and rare situations that its easier to go from enterprise to a consumer solutions instead of starting off as consumer solution,” said Ramon Llamas, a wearables analyst for IDC. “They need to build on this and there will be opportunities for expansion.”
For now, Vuzix is only getting started. “This is an important device for our future,” he said. “Wearable technology was just coming around the corner to mean something to people. We felt that if we didn’t get on the stick and move to these next generations products, we were going to get run over by the big guys.”
i saw it , awesome blocks at L2 during the second half of day, i am looking forward for tmr
nice close! The real first of a lot white candles...
are we going to close HOD...and a gap up tmr?
down she goes...thats fact no covering or some like that, no volume, nothing...
awesome volume lol
ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sept. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Vuzix® Corporation (OTCQB: VUZI), a leading supplier of Video Eyewear and Smart Glasses products in the consumer, commercial and entertainment markets, today announced it has joined the Salesforce Wear initiative, creating the first ecosystem dedicated to accelerating the adoption of wearables in the enterprise. As part of the initiative, Vuzix is helping businesses create wearable experiences with eyewear and Smart Glasses products in the consumer, commercial and entertainment markets. In addition, Vuzix will demonstrate the potential of wearable technology for a wide variety of workforce capabilities extending to many industries.
"Building on the rise and momentum of the wearable technology space, Vuzix is excited to be partnering alongside other key industry leaders in the technology and augmented reality space to create high-quality wearable solutions for worker productivity and satisfaction," said Vuzix CEO and President Paul J. Travers. "Contributing to the Salesforce Wear initiative will be Vuzix' award-winning M100 Smart Glasses, an Android based wearable computing communications and display system. Salesforce.com is one of the world's most innovative technology companies and we are pleased to be partaking in this initiative."
"Like mobile 10 years ago, wearables presents a huge opportunity for businesses to transform the way they work," said Daniel Debow, SVP emerging technologies, salesforce.com. "By leveraging the power of the Salesforce1 Customer Platform, Vuzix is helping companies connect with their customers in a whole new way."
The Salesforce Wear Developer Pack for the Salesforce1 Platform
Until now, there has not been a trusted, enterprise cloud platform for businesses that want to embrace wearables. Developers who wanted to create business-focused applications did not have access to an industry leading platform, reference applications and code, ecosystem support or customer data. Developers in the wearable space built great prototypes, but were not connected to a platform.
Now more than 1.5 million Salesforce1 developers can kick start a wearable strategy. With access to a growing library of devices, sample code, documentation, demonstrations and reference apps to learn from, enterprise developers can immediately start building their own business applications connected to wearable devices. The goal of the launch is to make it easy to dream, build and deploy bold ideas never before seen in the enterprise.
Salesforce, Salesforce1, Salesforce Wear and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc
About Vuzix Corporation
Vuzix is a leading supplier of Video Eyewear and Smart Glasses products in the consumer, commercial and entertainment markets.
The Company's products include personal display and wearable computing devices that offer users a portable high quality viewing experience, provide solutions for mobility, wearable displays and virtual and augmented reality. Vuzix holds 39 patents and 10 additional patents pending and numerous IP licenses in the Video Eyewear field. The Company has won Consumer Electronics Show (or CES) awards for innovation for the years 2005 to 2014 and several wireless technology innovation awards among others. Founded in 1997, Vuzix is a public company (VUZI.QB) with offices in Rochester, NY, Oxford, UK and Tokyo, Japan.
Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer
Certain statements contained in this news release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward looking statements contained in this release relate to and include our involvement with the Salesforce Wear program and its impact on our M100 business, and the value of the IP portfolio, among other things, and the Company's leadership in the Video Eyewear and AR display industry. They are generally identified by words such as "believes," "may," "expects," "anticipates," "should" and similar expressions. Readers should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which are based upon the Company's beliefs and assumptions as of the date of this release. The Company's actual results could differ materially due to risk factors and other items described in more detail in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's Annual Reports and MD&A filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and applicable Canadian securities regulators (copies of which may be obtained at www.sedar.com or www.sec.gov ). Subsequent events and developments may cause these forward-looking statements to change. The Company specifically disclaims any obligation or intention to update or revise these forward-looking statements as a result of changed events or circumstances that occur after the date of this release, except as required by applicable law.
might be 3.18 and more here! still cheap
Nice!
cant remember the last one lol
just a preload i guess...always the same picture...it will fly but not this time imo
oooops
just a buy in of PnD group tmr we see 0006 again
i guess we see the first PR this week
sure we will! And those PR's will bring the pps over 4$
lets go green...i am in now lol
GBHPF way undervalued!
lets ride the wave...wheres the volume?
are u ok Diva?
way undervalued...
harvest season is near, it will rise at least 300% and more, good time to get in now imo
Of course it is! Just a matter of time
Something to watch GBHPF
its really interesting how many people are buying hemp things, its a hole new business imo
good things to come here
we saw some insider buying last days...very nice
the ONLY thing for futurer here is GREEN!
so somebody found this puppy
found the word "OAKLEY"??? What does that mean?
sorry but what does that mean? cant read it...
green weeks ahead! once this puppy gets some attention...
sorry but theres no reason for a drop also no reason for a raise but true buy signal! And thats a beginnig of a corporation followed by a number of sold glasses...
$GBHPF
i was not that wrong as u thought... experiance tells me its allways the same way vuzix goes..
i already loaded the boat but there's still space for some more...we will see good luck
see u later at noon when it drops to 2.65 or lower...
NEWC getting 8M $$$