It appears that the smart watch is not going anywhere. If Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has its way, and it probably will, there will be another iteration on the horizon in the near future. The news was shared at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this past weekend.
Currently, LG already makes Google’s Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 smart phones. Nonetheless, they may not be the only manufacturer involved. If other OEMs get a piece of Google’s smart watch pie, it will pose the similarities seen when multiple manufacturers sell Google-powered phones.
Although Google representatives have declined to comment on the news, it is believed that its operating system will be leaked in March, and the watch’s specifics will come forth at a Google developer event in June.
Of course, this will make Google a direct competitor to Samsung, who already has a smart watch on the market. Additionally, Samsung announced that its next watch will be powered by Tizen, an OS it developed with Intel. This is a notable showing on Samsung’s part of its move towards depending less on Google. On the other hand, Samsung sells more phones running Google’s OS than any other company. So, it might be better to categorize this as co-opetition.
As far as the smart watch industry goes, it is starting to get saturated with heavy-duty players. Even Apple has thrown its hat into the ring with the iWatch, and it might receive global fanfare when that gets released. Despite rivals, Google wants to prove that it can also tackle hardware just as well as it has done with software. Its current hardware portfolio also includes Nest Labs, which Google acquired last year.
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