Those of you ‘lucky’ enough to have attended my annual ‘State of the ICT Nation’ address in Sept 09 (Well,l it did cost £1500 a ticket!) will remember that I declared 2010 would be ‘The Year of the Tablet’. The audience reacted in their usual “Well, that’s Holway again…” type of way. In Apr 10, Apple launched the iPad and the rest, as they say, is history. IDC have just released research that tablets will overtake PCs this year and laptops in 2014.
I’ve been writing about ‘wearable computing’ for several years now but I think I am now sure enough to declare 2014 as “The Year of Wearable Computing’. Indeed it will probably be earlier - H2 2013.
We’ve already got Google Glass. The Samsung S4 comes with a really natty s-band accessory that you wear on your arm which can monitor all kinds of body functions. Then we look forward to the much hyped Apple iWatch.
As with all ‘NBTs’, it is the coming together of technology with a known/existing need/application. The technology is not just the wearable device itself – it’s more the confluence of the wearable device with the smartphone. Using NFC, they will operate in tandem; the wearable device exchanging info with the smartphone and vice versa. The killer application is ‘health’. Actually it will start with the very healthy wanting to use it whilst jogging/cycling/hiking etc. But it will soon be deployed for the ill/old too - a huge market.
In marketing terms, it will be an ‘additive’ product. Unlike the tablet which replaced the PC/laptop, wearable computing will be an additional spend. This is particularly attractive as the smartphone market has hit saturation in most developed markets. Conversely, it will be a much lower margin business. Competition will be intense – manufacturers will not be caught napping as they were with the iPad. But wearable computing will have to stand in its own without the carrier subsidises that made smartphones so attractive.
There are also huge software (apps) and services opportunities with this new market genre. Health is huge business. Just think of all that data sloshing around waiting to be analysed.