Microsoft Working With Suppliers on Designs for Touch-Enabled Watch Device
TAIPEI—Microsoft Corp. is working on designs for a touch-enabled watch device, executives at suppliers said, potentially joining rivals like Apple Inc. in working on a new class of computing products.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's supplier-led device work follows its 2012 smartphone testing with Asian suppliers and a longer corporate push toward touch interfaces. It arrives two months after reports that Apple had assembled a wristwatch-computer team, turning the watch from an isolated experiment into an emerging competitive category.
First-order effects
- Microsoft and its suppliers begin allocating design and engineering capacity to a touch-enabled watch device, extending Microsoft's hardware exploration beyond smartphones.
- Apple's reported watch effort gains a prospective rival before either company has established the category.
Second-order effects
- Suppliers working with Microsoft must support a smaller, touch-driven device format alongside phone programs, making wearable design capability a new point of competition for component and manufacturing partners.
Third-order effects
- If Apple and Microsoft carry their designs into products, touch computing would move toward body-worn devices, where hardware makers must compete on interface design as well as conventional PCs and phones.
The trend: Major platform companies are testing whether touch interfaces can extend personal computing into fashionized, body-worn hardware.