Report: Microsoft may also make smart watches
Microsoft is working on designs for a touch-enabled smart
watch, joining a number of other large competitors like Samsung Electronics and
Apple who are said to be working on similar devices, a newspaper reported.
Executives at suppliers to Microsoft told The Wall Street
Journal that the company was sourcing components for the prototype of what
could potentially be a "watch-style device."
Microsoft has, for example, requested 1.5-inch displays
from component makers for the prototype, an executive at a component supplier
told the newspaper. It is unclear whether the company will decide to go ahead
with the watch, the newspaper added.
Microsoft could not be immediately reached for comment.
A large number of vendors are looking at new product
categories beyond smartphones and tablets.
This isn't the first time, however, that Microsoft may be
looking at watches as a product. It launched a smart wrist watch around a
concept called Smart Personal Object Technology it unveiled in 2002, but
withdrew it after a lackluster performance.
The Redmond, Wash., company is seeing its key PC market
under threat from smartphones and tablets, and the failure of its new Windows 8
operating system to boost sales significantly. IDC said last week that first
quarter PC shipments totaled 76.3 million units, down 13.9% compared to the
same quarter last year. (The decline was worse than the 7.7% previously
forecast by the analyst firm, and the market could be headed into further
contraction, the research firm added.
Microsoft has been targeting new markets including by
launching its own Surface tablets which by the fourth quarter of last year had
not made a significant impact on the tablet market that was dominated by Apple
and Samsung.
Gartner forecast in October last year that wearable smart
electronics in shoes, tattoos, and accessories will emerge as a $10 billion
industry by 2016. Most of the revenue from wearable smart electronics over the
next four years will come from athletic shoes and fitness tracking,
communications devices for the ear, and automatic insulin delivery for
diabetics, the research firm said. The new smart watches are expected to offer
a variety of such applications besides telling the time.
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