The news that HP will start a collaboration with India’s Titan comes only a week after the American tech giant signed a deal with Swiss watchmaker Movado
Exactly one year ago, HP announced that it would launch the MB Chronowing, a luxury smartwatch built in partnership with Michael Bastian. This week, the company said that it would join hands with Titan, the world’s fifth largest watchmaker and the joint venture of Tata Group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation, in order to expand its Engineered by HP program and make new wearables that are “productive and responsive, but not intrusive”
“Engineered by HP is reinventing the experience consumers have with everyday accessories by making existing objects smarter through innovative materials, design and technology, to keep people connected to the way they live today,” explained Sridhar Solur, General Manager, Wearables and Smart Platforms at HP Inc.
“As a brand we are known for our design, manufacturing capabilities, innovation and quality. Moreover, our endeavor has been to always provide our consumers with something new. Our entry into the smartwatch market is another step in this direction,” added S. Ravi Kant, CEO Watches and Accessories Division, Titan Company Limited. “Engineered by HP and Titan make a formidable duo with each lending the other a new dimension, resulting in smart timepieces designed with today’s discerning consumer in mind.”
If it wasn’t already obvious from Kant’s quote, Titan will be in charge with designing and manufacturing the wearables, while HP will take care of the hardware, software, and everything in-between (aka the user interface). In the past month or so, both Tag Heuer and Fossil made the news with their efforts of building remarkable wearables, and the fact that HP announced two partnerships within one week should make these noobs ponder if they have what it takes to impress the world.
Assuming that the smartwatch developed by HP and Titan would work seamlessly with both Android and iOS, users would no longer have to choose their wearable depending on the smartphone they’re using, and vice versa. Even worse, there still are some manufacturers out there that don’t only lock their wearables to work on a single platform, but on a handful of devices running that platform, devices that they themselves make. Some companies should really take a lesson from Microsoft, who not only made its software accessible on other platforms, but it even developed a wearable that works with Windows Phone and the competitions mobile operating systems (Android, and iOS, respectively).
It might take a while till the brainchild of this collaboration sees the light of the day, but until then you can go to Amazon to make an idea about how the Titan timepieces look and how much do they cost. A cross-platform smartwatch would obviously cost more, but at least people would have a starting point.
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[via pocketnow]
