Why Microsoft got it right with the Band: moving on from the "smartwatch"
Almost by surprise, Microsoft announced the Microsoft Band, its quantifying bracelet and the jump of those from Redmond to the world of wearables. It is impossible to avoid comparisons with your competitors, Apple and Google; and their respective products, iWatch and Android Wear. And in that comparison, I personally think Microsoft is the winner.
It seems a somewhat absurd conclusion. It's undeniable that the iWatch and Android Wear have features that the Microsoft Band doesn't. In fact, it is that the former are smartwatches while Microsoft's is a quantifying bracelet.Why do I say that Redmond was right?
Microsoft has succeeded because it has understood what the issue of wearables consists of and has not fallen into the error of its competitors, who have tried to create Homer Simpson's car.
At Microsoft they know that smartwatches are a solution in search of a problem right now.
And it is that the pull of wearables has come from the quantification part. I think that few people see the utility of talking to your wrist to reply to a message instead of taking your mobile out of your pocket (because few smartwatches are independent of the phone) and doing it with the keyboard. Notifications on the wrist, which many have focused on, is not something that provides real value.
Microsoft has understood that. He has understood that, at the moment, putting your mobile on your wrist makes no senseThat wearables are not for everyone, and that those who are buying them are doing so mainly to quantify, to measure their exercise and activity and have more data . And that it is much better to go into that niche, where products like Fitbit or Jawbone are, than to try to artificially expand it with products that in theory are for everyone but in reality are of no use to anyone.
"You just have to see how they sold it. It doesn&39;t have the best screen because all you need to see are four counted things. You don&39;t have a new way of interacting with the system because you don&39;t need to interact with the wristband for it to do what it&39;s supposed to do. It is not anchored to a certain system because it does not need to be an extension of your mobile to be useful."
There are many things that are not needed in a product of this style (curiously, all those that differentiate a quantifying bracelet from a smartwatch) and that only serve to make it more expensive and worsen its battery.As Antonio Ortiz said in his review of the Moto 360, the most outstanding watch to date, smartwatches are currently a solution in search of a problem
And it&39;s not just me saying this: it&39;s only been a day and it looks like this band has been quite successful. It is true that it is not for everyone (I would not buy it, for example) but that does not mean that it is not a good product: it has a clear objective, it is open to any system and device - the closed ecosystem is less and less cool -, has a powerful platform behind it and is not excessively expensive. It&39;s a good start in the world of wearables and will probably help Microsoft get ahead when more useful products can be created within this category - that is , when there is a reason to create smart watches other than is that X company has one>."
