Microsoft Enters the Wearables Market With 'Band'

Microsoft has announced the availability of "Microsoft Band," a wearable device that goes on the wrist. It's designed to do health- and fitness-related tasks, like monitoring heart rate and how well a wearer sleeps, and its on-board GPS lets users map their run/bike routes. The company says Band plays nicely with iOS and Android devices in addition to Windows phones. It also has full support for viewing phone notifications and calendar alerts, and a built-in microphone enables queries through the Cortana personal assistant software. The display is rectangular, 11mm x 33mm (0.43" x 1.3"), and has a resolution of 320x106. They claim a battery life of 48 hours, with a charge time of 1.5 hours or less. The device costs $200.

Comments

Re: hmm

[Rob Y.]

Not quite. Microsoft has an immensely profitable business selling software to customers - but the stock price already reflects that. The perverse thing about Capitalism in America today is that being a hugely profitable business isn't enough. To satisfy the investor class, you need to generate an ever increasing stock price. And for a mature company like Microsoft, that means finding new revenue streams. So, while they could continue indefinitely with their software for cash business model, what they're trying to do is to copy other companies' models in addition. They're not particularly creative, so when they enter the search market, they do it by copying Google's business model as well as their technology - with the same incentives to mine your data. To think that they don't do that simply because they make a lot of money selling software is pretty naive. If they don't mine your data now, it's because they're not successful enough, and they're still in the loss-leader phase of trying to break into the business. But they probably mine you anyway...