Tag Heuer and Intel have partnered to produce a smartwatch in a bid to take on the Apple Watch.
Revealing his expectations that Apple Watch would boost watch usage among young people, Tag Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver told Reuters that the company planned to capitalise on this growth by offering a "real watch."
The partnership with chip-maker Intel collaboration is expected to be announced later today. The product will be a digital version of the Swiss brand’s Carrera watch with electronics provided by Intel, adding smart functions such as geolocation.
As tech giants intrude on the watch space with wearable devices, the announcement signals that traditional watchmakers may move to defend their territory. In particular, Apple is targeting the luxury market with a version of its smartwatch costing £8000, while the Huawei Watch also targets watch fans rather than tech fans.
Smartwatches have yet to become mainstream, but some, like Biver, expect the Apple Watch to solidify them as must-have technology.
Sami Luukkonen, managing director for Accenture’s Electronics and High Tech group, commented: "For these new connected device categories, high tech companies need to go back to the drawing board and rethink their product development approaches to focus on the entire customer experience.
"They should make fundamental strategic changes that no longer focus on product feature differentiation but rather holistic, digital experience differentiation."
Keith Poyser, General Manager EMEA, Accellion comments:
"Tag Heuer is undoubtedly one of the most prestigious, high-end watchmakers in the world, but is the wearable space really something they are ready to enter? UK businesses have barely come to terms with the words ‘Bring Your Own Device’, and many still haven’t figured out their mobile strategy in order to deal with this. So is Tag Heuer opening the Pandora’s Box of cyber security with this launch?
"2Employees may not be wearing these devices in the workplace immediately, but enterprises need to wake up to the security threats posed when they do, as their workforce will not refrain from accessing confidential work-related information from these devices. If business do not invest in secure mobile-first solutions soon they will find themselves vulnerable to an attack they hadn’t seen coming."
