Google Glass Signs Deal With Ray Ban's Parent Company

sfcrazy (1542989) writes with news that fancier Google Glasswear is coming soon "Google has signed a deal with The Luxottica Group, the world's largest eyewear company (controlling 80% of the eyewear market). Luxottica owns Ray-Ban, Oakley, Vogue-Eyewear, Persol, Oliver Peoples, Alain Mikli, and Arnette. The deal shows how serious Google is about Glass, contrary to the skepticism raised by high-profiled users like Robert Scoble who spelled doom for the device."

Comments

80% of market in terms of what?

[captainpanic]

Many people wear cheap sunglasses - I guess "80% of the eyewear market" is in terms of value, not volume, since 1 Ray-ban costs about as much as 100 cheap sunglasses?

Re:80% of market in terms of what?

[nemasu]

Never mind, this makes no sense. But this does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... That is a loot of well known brands.

Re: 80% of market in terms of what?

[RocketSW]

Luxoticca not only owns a wide range of premium and "budget" eyewear brands (prescription glasses and sunglasses), they also own LensCrafters. Pearle vision, sears optical, target optical, and Sunglass Hut to name a few. Additionally they own the vision insurance company EyeMed.

The word "monopoly" comes to mind.

There was a 60 minutes piece about this not too long ago:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g...

Re: 80% of market in terms of what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google getting in bed with Luxottica is probably about as close to being evil as I've considered from them, honestly. I don't care about the "I am a product" aspect of Google's business model, because it has never inconvenienced me and I don't feel like I have some magical nature that means I suffer for having this targeted to a profile of me that they've made. I like what Google does, it makes my life easier and even though they might not have the best usability in a lot of cases, it's acceptable.

But Luxottica are just plain bastards. Got an optical practice and want to sell Ray-Bans? Sure, just sell a bunch of crap you don't want, too. Want to have your own practice? Now you're competing with a vendor but on multiple levels. They're a bunch of monopolistic bastards, and Google just jumped into bed with the worst fucks in that industry. Thanks, Google.

Luxotica

[bl968]

I posted this story a few years ago about Luxotica...

What makes glasses so expensive? Oblong plastic lenses? Plastic and metal frames? No, we’re getting screwed!

Those of us who need prescription eyewear need prescription eyewear. Are you wearing yours to read this? Imagine if you weren’t. Imagine life without your glasses for a year, a week, an hour. Yet many health insurance plans, especially for the unemployed or self-employed, don’t cover them.

http://www.clarksvilleonline.c...

Re:fuck me

[ls671]

I am quite over 21 but I am still pretty. I am 78.

Interested?

Yay!

[Maury Markowitz]

So one near monopoly with 80% market share is getting together with another near monopoly with a 90% market share?

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:fuck me

[postbigbang]

The OS is only part of it. I am not a fanboi, but Apple does several things nicely:

-it creates reality distortion fields of billion dollar size
-it has consistent build quality that reflects serious engineering feats, and vendor liaison and supply-chain discipline
-it has remarkable consistency, good and bad, mostly good
-they are very good at supporting their users and are very connected/focused on their users
-they are masters, perhaps wizards at meme control.

The OS is very important, but that's not why they get top dollar for their goods. Their assets don't depreciate as rapidly, and they are fiendishly consistent.