noch unentdeckt - VUZIX (Seite 3710)

[Maik1969]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 47.999.314 von Erdbeer-Schorsch am 10.10.14 15:50:02

Ist schon klar!
Man sieht es schon am Kurs!

[Erdbeer-Schorsch]

In the next 6-12 months, the company plans to hire additional technical staff to support increased production of its smart glasses.

Ein eindeutiges Zeichen das die Verkaufszahlen steigen!!

[Mark333]

More than 100 companies have purchased the M100 smart glasses

Vuzix focuses on enterprise wearable tech, inks deal with Lenovo for growth in China

Quelle: https://451research.com/report-short?entityId=83068&type=mis…

Vuzix got its start designing digital display technologies for the defense industry. Since then, the company has evolved its product line to target other commercial applications for heads-up displays (HUDs). Now, with an additional $3m under its belt from a recent financing round and a deal to white-label its smart glasses for Lenovo in China, the company is preparing to scale its business. The focus? HUDs for the enterprise. Standing partner relationships with companies such as APX Labs, AT&T, Augmate, Layar, metaio, Nokia, NTT, SAP and Unvired are only the beginning of the business Vuzix plans to build around this nascent wearable tech segment.

The 451 Take
Vuzix has nearly two decades of experience designing and manufacturing HUD products. Unlike other smart glasses providers, however, this also means that the company has a history to consider – which, in our view, may be somewhat misleading given a direct correlation between budgetary constraints in the defense industry (where many of its legacy customers reside) and a decline in financial performance. But today, it's clear that Vuzix is off to a new start.

The demand for wearable tech applications in the enterprise will only increase in the coming years. Focusing specifically on this segment of the market is a wise decision to achieve the scale that both the recent $3m in funding and the deal with Lenovo support. Although it will be important for Vuzix to keep a close eye on bill of materials costs, pricing strategy and competitors' technologies, the company is already ahead in terms of its patent and partner portfolios. Relationships with key contributors such as SAP and Nuance Communications will play an increasingly important role in terms of differentiation and time to market when it comes time for prospects to evaluate their options for wearable tech implementations. Fortunately for Vuzix, many of these components are already part of its story.
Context
Vuzix is a publicly traded company founded in 1997 with headquarters in Rochester, New York, and offices in Oxford and Tokyo. The company released its first wearable display in 2004 before going on to win a number of awards at CES for its innovations in the smart glasses market each year from 2005 through 2014. Today, Vuzix has roughly 40 employees, a quarter of which are engineers, and about 50 patents for its wearable display technologies. In the next 6-12 months, the company plans to hire additional technical staff to support increased production of its smart glasses. For FY 2013, Vuzix reported gross sales of nearly $2.4m, which is slightly lower than 2012. But the HUD maker's focus on R&D throughout 2013 is already helping its performance in 2014; total sales through the middle of this year are up about $80,000 compared to the same period last year.

In June, Vuzix announced it had raised a $3m debt financing round led by existing institutional investors to support the commercialization of its M100 smart glasses, which are geared toward enterprise applications. Under the terms of the agreement, there are no scheduled principal or interest payments on the senior secured convertible notes until they reach maturity on June 2, 2017. While founder and CEO Paul Travers indicated that Vuzix's most recent financing round was not tied to other announcements that have since surfaced, we believe the capital infusion will ultimately help the company's efforts to scale – particularly as it pertains to white-labeling its devices for Lenovo in China.

Products
Vuzix provides digital eyewear, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) products for a wide range of applications and use cases. The company's current product lineup is segmented as follows:

Enterprise: Monocular devices designed for industrial environments. They can be retrofitted for both enterprise-specific and 'prosumer' customers – both cases fall under the M-series nomenclature. Today, this would be the company's M100 smart glasses, which were introduced in 2013 and began shipping early this year. While the prosumer version has not yet been released, we expect it will come in late 2014/early 2015, around the same time frame that v2.0 of the M100 and related software will likely be released. Device pricing, which includes an external battery pack for continuous use throughout a worker's shift, is about $1,000. The SDK for the M100 is an additional $200.
Entertainment: VR devices in the WRAP family. These include the WRAP 1200DX-VR and WRAP 1200DX, which cost $600 and $500, respectively.
Research (enterprise-focused): M-, WRAP- and STAR-series devices that enterprises can use to build use cases around AR implementations. Pricing is $1,500-6,000, depending on the device.
For its M-series enterprise HUDs (our main focus), Vuzix offers its waveguide optics display – which injects images into a 1.4mm see-through waveguide optic rather than bending light through bulkier lenses such as conventional optics displays – in either an over-the-head or a glasses-based form factor. The company claims its full-color display provides an image visually equivalent to a four-inch smartphone screen held at a 14-inch distance. While Vuzix's M product family has been exclusive to the Android OS ecosystem to date, the company says iOS support is on its product roadmap.

The M100 can be operated in three modes:

Local: Applications are loaded onto and run directly on the M100, using the device's on-board processor (1GB RAM) and memory (4GB flash, expandable up to 32GB via micro SD).
HUD: Applications are accessed via a paired Android device.
Collaborative: Applications are utilized through a combination of on-board and paired Android device resources. Vuzix cites this option as yielding maximum performance.
Go to market
Vuzix's main line of business is the design and manufacturing of HUDs for the enterprise. Although this also includes a bit of work on the software and application layers (e.g., its SDK), the company primarily relies on its established and growing partner network to round out the various components of its offerings.

For example, Vuzix works with players such as APX Labs, Augmate, Layar, metaio and Wikitude to create the AR overlays that run on its smart glasses; for platforms, software and systems integration, Vuzix has partnered with companies such as SAP and Unvired. Other players – such as Nokia and Lenovo, both of which have entered into technology licensing agreements with Vuzix to collaborate on forthcoming waveguide optics-based HUDs – would be considered both customers and partners, a dynamic that should help Vuzix scale its business. Interestingly enough, however, the Vuzix/Lenovo deal, which was just announced in July, does have a geographic focus: China. Although specifics have not been disclosed, Vuzix will supply Lenovo's new business development arm with M100 devices that will be cobranded by the two companies. As part of the agreement, Vuzix will become the exclusive third-party provider of smart glasses to Lenovo for industrial and commercial markets in China. Lenovo will also be responsible for product sales and marketing efforts upon the HUD's release.

A component parts supplier such as Kopin would also be considered a partner (although Kopin is an investor as well). But it's really the diverse mix of company types that Vuzix has in its partner portfolio that have brought its products to life. For example, in the case of the Vuzix/Nuance relationship, the speech-recognition-software vendor has contributed directly to the enterprise appeal of Vuzix's offerings (similar to the AR players), especially the integration of embedded voice-control functions – a critical element to hands-free device use – in the company's M100 smart glasses. Previously, input methods were limited to the physical buttons on the device itself or a paired smartphone running a remote control app. Vuzix has been able to accommodate this kind of capability by incorporating audio-in (through a noise-canceling microphone) and audio-out (through a single in-ear monitor) features.

Vuzix hopes its focus on wearables for the enterprise will help it overcome market challenges related to monocular HUD form factors. Although creating binocular smart glasses for the consumer market is on the company's product roadmap (and could be released as early as the end of this year), Vuzix believes the value proposition is – and will remain – more clear in the enterprise. In these scenarios, for example, ROI can be demonstrated in terms of worker productivity improvements. For consumers, on the other hand, there isn't currently a killer app or use case to dwarf the smartphone. The price point for HUDs also isn't currently where it needs to be for mass-market adoption to take place. Vuzix believes the target for this is roughly $500 or less.

Customers
Vuzix provides HUDs to companies that have deployed or plan to deploy wearable computing products in warehousing, heavy equipment operations, medical, automotive, aviation and customer service industries and job functions. More than 100 companies have purchased the M100 smart glasses, which puts the number of units in the field at just over 1,000. BMW, Nippon Steel, NTT Docomo and SAP are a few examples of the customers using the M100.

Geographically, the lion's share of Vuzix's business has come from the US (leader), European and Japanese markets, although a country such as China will likely be a significant contributor to the company's top-line revenue once Lenovo starts rolling out its HUD.

Competition
Despite a number of companies offering HUD/smart glasses, there is no clear market leader today. This is one of the reasons why Vuzix has been pushing so hard to ramp up production and build its partner network.

From a technical standpoint, Vuzix's waveguide optics technology sets it apart from the rest – especially when it comes to image quality, power consumption and form factor/design flexibility. But at the end of the day, it all boils down to substitutability (which, at present, would also include smartphones or legacy enterprise offerings). It's because of this that companies such as Epson, Google, Kopin, Recon Instruments and Motorola with market-ready HUDs must be viewed as competitors. Although Vuzix does, however, point out that bulkier head-mounted devices like Motorola's HC1 headset don't necessarily fit in the same family of smart glasses devices (e.g., Google Glass); a stronger differentiator might be price: Vuzix says that most of the other smart glasses in the market today are double or triple the price of its own devices.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths
Vuzix has a strong and growing partner network to support its efforts to deliver the scale that will ultimately be demanded by enterprise customers. The company has also spent considerable R&D resources to create technically differentiated products that are competitively priced compared to other offerings currently on the market.

Weaknesses
Despite being around since the late 1990s, Vuzix has seen its business wax and wane over the years. While 2014 may mark a new beginning, it will be important for Vuzix to again prove itself to investors.
Opportunities

Threats
There's a void in the market for enterprise HUDs that Vuzix can fill not just in the US, but also abroad. This means that capitalizing on the deal with Lenovo, which calls for Vuzix to be the exclusive third-party provider of smart glasses to Lenovo for the industrial and commercial markets in China, will be increasingly important as demand for wearable computing products rises, particularly as it pertains to large, MNC customers that operate with a global purview.

Opportunities
It's still early days for the wearable tech industry, and because there is no clear market leader today, there's a good chance that Vuzix could be up against much larger companies (with deeper pockets).

[Erdbeer-Schorsch]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 47.997.580 von jhackel am 10.10.14 13:54:23

Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt

[Erdbeer-Schorsch]

[jhackel]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 47.993.377 von Erdbeer-Schorsch am 10.10.14 08:54:02

Zitat von Erdbeer-Schorsch: Schade! Diese Seite (http://www.gizmochina.com/2014/07/10/oops-lenovo-al-glasses-…) hatte im Juli behauptet (zwei Wochen vor der offiziellen Bekanntgabe der Kooperation mit Lenovo), dass beide Brillen mit Vuzix zusammen entwickelt worden sind. Anscheinend hatten sie nur mit dem ersten Punkt recht

Ich hab dir von Anfang an gesagt, dass Vuzix nichts mit der C1 zu tun hat. Ich hab hier sogar die Korrespondenz mit Vuzix-IR gepostet, wo eindeutig gesagt wurde, dass sie mit der C1 nichts zu tun haben.

Die von dir genannte Seite haben spekuliert und nur weil sie einmal richtig lagen, heißt das nicht, dass sie immer richtig liegen. Die Kooperation mit Lenovo regelt die Vermarktung von M100 unter "powered by Lenovo". C1 hat dagegen nichts mit Vuzix zu tun!

[Mark333]

Quelle: https://www.facebook.com/itizzimo?fref=ts

[Mark333]

Die Firma Itizzimo (http://www.itizzimo.com/), Partner von Vuzix, ist unter den Auserwählten des German Accelerator Program.


German Accelerator Program:

The German Accelerator supports German tech startups to enter the U.S. market. We provide startups with hands-on mentoring at our locations in Silicon Valley, San Francisco and New York City.

The three months program is open to a broad range of startups from ICT related sectors. Ideal participants generate domestic revenue, enjoy customer traction and have the potential for category leadership in a large, global market.
During the program, startups face the dynamic and competitive U.S. environment and benchmark product, team, and business model. They actively engage with customers, establish relationships, adjust communication styles, validate product/market fit, and connect with potential investors.

Experienced mentors continuously challenge assumptions and provide feedback, while startups execute on reaching set milestones and objectives.

Startups have the opportunity to extend their participation in the program for an additional three months. The focus of an extension is on business execution, company building, and financing.
(http://germanaccelerator.com/program/#program-overview)


Partnerschaft Vuzix - Itizzimo (http://www.itizzimo.com/partnerschaft-mit-vuzix-itizzimo-bie…) (15. Mai 2014)

Schon seit 2013 arbeitet das Würzburger IT-Unternehmen iTiZZiMO partnerschaftlich mit dem Datenbrillen-Hersteller Vuzix zusammen, jetzt einigten sich beide Unternehmen auf den nächsten Schritt ihrer Kooperation: Als Value Added Reseller vertreibt iTiZZiMO künftig weltweit Hardware und Software aus einer Hand. Das Würzburger IT-Unternehmen stellt professionelle Software-Lösungen für mobile Datenbrillen im industriellen Umfeld, basierend auf kontextsensitiven Technologien, zur Verfügung. Bisher wurden jedoch Hardware und Software umständlich über getrennte Kanäle angeboten. Als Reseller kann iTiZZiMO seine Kunden jetzt auch mit der nötigen Hardware versorgen.

»Die Produkte von Vuzix sind einfach robust, performant und vor allem für den industriellen Einsatz bestens geeignet«, erklärt Geschäftsführer Reza Etemadian das Vertrauen zu dem US-amerikanischen Videobrillen-Hersteller. »Als erstes Unternehmen weltweit haben wir eine SAP-integrierte Komissionierlösung und eine Remote-Support-Anwendung auf der Vuzix M100 entwickelt.« Bei führenden Industrie-Unternehmen erfreut sich diese »intelligente Brille« als Konkurrenzprodukt zu Google Glass einer immer größeren Beliebtheit.

Die Technologie-Partnerschaft hat viele Vorteile – nicht nur für die beteiligten Unternehmen, sondern insbesondere für die Kunden, die mithilfe eines einfachen Formulars auf der Website von iTiZZiMO nun ganz bequem ihre Komplettbestellungen aufgeben können. »Uns bedeutet die Zusammenarbeit viel«, betont Reza Etemadian. Schließlich geht es nicht nur um die kontinuierliche Erweiterung und Bündelung von Vertriebskanälen, sondern auch um die schrittweise gemeinsame Weiterentwicklung von Hard- und Software.

[Erdbeer-Schorsch]

Chinese firms poised to grow as players in the ‘wearables’ market

[...]Computer giant Lenovo launched its first wearables – two internet-ready “smart glass” models – in July. The industrial-focused M100 was designed with US firm Vuzix, while the “New Glass” model for mainland consumers was developed with a company called Ceyes. Both devices feature mainland-developed operating systems.[...]

http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/1613579/chine…

Schade! Diese Seite (http://www.gizmochina.com/2014/07/10/oops-lenovo-al-glasses-…) hatte im Juli behauptet (zwei Wochen vor der offiziellen Bekanntgabe der Kooperation mit Lenovo), dass beide Brillen mit Vuzix zusammen entwickelt worden sind. Anscheinend hatten sie nur mit dem ersten Punkt recht

[CREO]

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0300966.html

Da dürfte es bald eine News geben.