How does a $40 million company beat Google to market with perhaps the most innovative, socially significant invention since the cellular phone?
Well, I hate to say it, but there’s no real technique to this feat.
It could have been more of a lucky combination of timing, product demand, and social readiness for the technology, but the fact remains…
When people today hear the words “smart glasses,” they typically associate that term with the famous, albeit conspicuously unavailable, Google Glass.
It’s a super cool, ultra-modern design that borrows equally from the monocular targeting system of an Apache attack helicopter, the eye of James Cameron’s Terminator, and the functionality of most modern smartphones.
And yet this $1,500 product is basically nowhere to be seen. Aside from a handful of “explorers” — test monkeys for the technology — it’s virtually absent from the marketplace and our collective consciousness.
Too Quick on the Trigger
Much of the blame for this can be put directly on Google.
The company has been criticized for making the invention public too early instead of developing it covertly and then unveiling it to the amazement of the world.
It did this for a reason, of course, hoping the buzz created would spur countless software developers, large and small, to develop all the killer apps that make new hardware commercially viable.
This started to happen, but then it sort of stopped.
Twitter abandoned Glass-compatible app development.
The creator of the device itself left Google.
And the “explorers” testing this device in public have been given a different name: Glassholes — as those interacting with people wearing the device feel understandably uncomfortable that they might be getting recorded.
It’s indicative of a lot of growing pains for the technology, but that hasn’t stopped a tiny company from actually introducing and marketing a device with many of the same capabilities.
Taking Care of Business… Quietly
The company, Vuzix Corporation (OTC: VUZI), is already marketing its latest smart glasses, the Vuzix M100, to any consumer lucky enough to get a pair through Amazon.
The initial inspiration behind this device didn’t come from the perceived need of all denizens of the 21st century. Instead, it came from a much more practical, albeit pedestrian, need to keep track of things in large warehouses.
Workers operating in large storage facilities containing vast volumes of boxes needed a hands-free way to scan bar codes. The need was simple, the solution was elegant, and it didn’t take a legion of Glassholes to prove it could work.
Of course, given Google’s relentless yet premature drive to popularize a technology it hadn’t yet perfected, the potential of the Vuzix device quickly became evident, and the company made adaptations for the wider market.
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Christmas is Coming!
Today, the Vuzix M100 runs Android apps directly or pairs with a more traditional Android mobile device.
It features Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, HD video recording, and can access many of today’s most popular Android apps.
The glasses don’t look as cool, and Vuzix didn’t hire Luxottica Group (the world’s largest eyeglass maker, whose brands include Ray-Ban and Oakley) to provide fashionability like Google did, but does that really matter?
Vuzix saw a problem, and it addressed it with a simple, focused solution.
When that solution found a much wider spectrum of application than the company initially planned for, it adapted, even coming up with a simpler, cheaper product — the HDMI compatible Vuzix Wrap “virtual theater” — for people who just want an all-immersive viewing experience for their favorite shows and movies.
The World Might Already Be Moving On
So almost two and a half years after we first heard about Google Glass, it’s arguable that the product is stillborn.
There are already companies out there, Google among them, working on a contact lens solution for the same applications for which the Glass was initially designed.
However, while they toil away trying to invent ways of delivering coherent information to the human brain through a tiny contact lens, Vuzix is marketing a complete product today — and for a fraction of the cost of the Glass.
Pretty amazing? Not really. Small companies have a nasty habit of flipping the world of technology on its ear.
Apple did it to IBM in the 1970s. Google did it to AOL and Yahoo in the 1990s.
Today, it’s happening again. And it’s being brought to you by a company that, at $3.40 a share, Google could buy for its monthly catering bill at the Googleplex.
To learn how to find and invest in companies with the same kind of growth potential as Vuzix, click here.
To your wealth,
Brian Hicks
Brian is a founding member and President of Angel Publishing and investment director for the income and dividend newsletter The Wealth Advisory. He writes about general investment strategies for Tech Investing Daily, Wealth Daily and Energy & Capital. Known as the “original bull on America,” Brian is also the author of the 2008 book, Profit from the Peak: The End of Oil and the Greatest Investment Event of the Century. In addition to writing about the economy, investments and politics, Brian is also a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox and countless radio shows. For more on Brian, take a look at his editor’s page.
